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The elusive Pol Pot, who presided over Cambodia's killing fields of the late 1970s, has conceded, in his first interview in 18 years, that his notorious Khmer Rouge movement "made mistakes" during its brutal reign, but he declared, "My conscience is clear," according to excerpts of the interview in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Review correspondent Nate Thayer, who conducted the interview last week at the guerrilla group's jungle stronghold at Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia, reported that Pol Pot was unrepentant when questioned repeatedly about accusations that he was responsible for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians. "I came to carry out the struggle, not to kill people," Pol Pot said, according to the Review's advance excerpts. "Even now, and you can look at me: Am I a savage person?"

For nearly two decades, Pol Pot, whose real name is Saloth Sar, has remained an enigma, moving only in the shadows of Cambodia's tortured politics. Never seen publicly and only rarely photographed, his name alone was enough to elicit terror and loathing. For years, his elusiveness -- his pronouncements were read by others over the guerrilla group's clandestine radio station -- only added to his mystique, giving rise repeatedly to rumors that he was dead or deathly ill, that he was living in luxury in Thailand, that he was retired or actively leading troops in the jungle. Not until July, when Thayer emerged from the malaria-ridden jungles of Anlong Veng, was there proof that Pol Pot was still alive. And now, for the first time, the man who lived a life shrouded in mystery has spoken in his own words to an American reporter about the movement he led for 37 years, the killings that took place under his regime, his regrets (apparently few) and his own view of Cambodia's genocide and why it happened. Thayer is the American journalist who first photographed Pol Pot July 25, when the Khmer Rouge leader was denounced by his own colleagues in a jungle show trial reminiscent of a Chinese-style Cultural Revolution "struggle session." Since then, Pol Pot reportedly has been detained under house arrest, stripped of the leadership of the movement he founded and headed, although until now there had been no sightings to confirm that he was being held captive. Thayer's full report on his two-hour interview will be published in Thursday's edition of the Hong Kong-based weekly Far Eastern Economic Review. Videotape of the interview will be made available by Associated Press Television. In the interview, according to the two-page press release the Review faxed to news organizations today, Pol Pot conceded that "our movement made mistakes" in the execution of perceived political opponents and others. But he added, "We had no other choice. Naturally we had to defend ourselves. The Vietnamese . . . wanted to assassinate me because they knew without me they could easily swallow up Cambodia." Pol Pot came to power in 1975 after a civil war and embarked on a radical Maoist agrarian experiment in which as many as 1 million Cambodians died of starvation, forced labor, malaria or execution before Vietnam invaded and ended Khmer Rouge rule early in 1979. In the excerpts, Pol Pot defends his purge of internal opponents to his rule, but blames many of the deaths on Vietnamese agents inside Cambodia. He denies the accepted estimate of 1 million Cambodian deaths while he was in power. "To say that millions died is too much," he is quoted as saying. The magazine's press release also says that Pol Pot made the "patently false claim" in the interview that the notorious Tuol Sleng prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, never existed. Tuol Sleng, a former school building, is now a museum of Khmer Rouge atrocities, filled with grisly photographs of victims as well as classrooms that were converted into torture chambers. But in the interview, according to the Review, Pol Pot calls Tuol Sleng a propaganda invention of the Vietnamese. The press release says that Thayer, who speaks Khmer, the language of Cambodia, and has dedicated his career to reporting on the shadowy guerrilla movement, also interviewed Ta Mok, the brutal Khmer Rouge military leader known as "the butcher." Ta Mok, Thayer reports, also denied that millions of Cambodians died during Khmer Rouge rule. "I don't agree with the American figure that millions died," Ta Mok is quoted saying -- "but hundreds of thousands, yes." No senior Khmer Rouge leader was previously known to have commented publicly on the scale of the atrocities committed by the group. Ta Mok overthrew Pol Pot after a bloody internal power struggle last June that saw Pol Pot order the murder of his own defense chief, Son Sen, along with Son Sen's wife and children. Their bodies reportedly were run over by trucks. Thayer reported that Pol Pot regrets killing his former defense chief, but denies he ordered the deaths of the children. "The babies, the young ones, I did not order them to be killed," he said. "For Son Sen and his family, yes, I feel sorry for that. That was a mistake of when we put our plan into practice." Thayer said he found Pol Pot, believed to be about 70, ill and perhaps near death, afflicted with a variety of ailments. He suffered an apparent stroke in 1995. "In Khmer, we have a saying," Pol Pot told Thayer, "that when one is both quite sick and old, there remains only one thing, that you die." Pol Pot is said to be confined to a hut with his wife and a 12-year-old daughter. Ta Mok, now leading the rebels, recently offered to turn Pol Pot over to an international tribunal if Hun Sen, the Cambodian strongman now in charge in Phnom Penh, is also put on trial for his alleged "crimes." Hun Sen has declined the offer.

Report: Khmer Rouge collapse drove Pol Pot to tears

04-23-1998 BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ Pol Pot, the tyrannical leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, broke down in tears when he realized his once-mighty guerrilla movement was on the brink of defeat, according to an account of his final days published Thursday.

Pol Pot died on April 15 in a small hut near the Thai border as Cambodian government troops were trying to finish off the remnants of the Khmer Rouge. The 73-year-old revolutionary died of a heart attack, said his comrades-turned-captors.

The account in the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review suggests the heart attack may have been brought on by hunger, lack of medical care, even shock - upon learning the Khmer Rouge was preparing to turn him over to an international tribunal for trial on genocide charges.

The account was written by U.S. journalist Nate Thayer, who last year became the first foreign journalist in 18 years to have an interview with the elusive Pol Pot. The interview occurred shortly after Pol Pot was deposed as head of the movement and placed under house arrest.

Pol Pot led the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime that through its radical Maoist-inspired policies caused the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians - either in mass executions or from starvation and disease. Since then, the Khmer Rouge has operated as a guerrilla army operating mostly from northern Cambodia.

Thayer quoted a Khmer Rouge military commander as saying Pol Pot died just hours after he learned of the plan to hand him over from a news broadcast by the Voice of America shortwave radio service.

``We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him,'' the commander, Khem Nuon, is quoted as saying.

Khem Nuon, the story noted, had told Thayer a different account a week earlier, saying Pol Pot had been informed of the decision to send him for trial and accepted it with revolutionary stoicism.

Now he claims they only told him ``we were in a very difficult situation and perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that.''

Thayer wrote that the fighting which drove the Khmer Rouge from their northern Cambodian stronghold of Anlong Veng prevented the ailing revolutionary from receiving proper care.

``For the last few weeks he had diarrhea and we haven't had much food,'' the current Khmer Rouge leader, Ta Mok, was quoted as saying.

A few days before his death, Pol Pot dyed his gray hair black, suggesting he was afraid of being captured.

At one point, Pol Pot was able to glimpse the turmoil caused by the fighting as he and his wife and 12-year-old daughter were being driven from one shelter to another, his minder, Non Nou, was quoted as saying.

``When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke down into tears,'' said Non Nou.

Pol Pot's 40-year-old widow, Muon, quoted him as saying ``My only wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country.'' Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979.

Ta Mok denied, as he has previously, speculation that he had Pol Pot killed.

The very night Pol Pot died, Ta Mok said, he had wanted to move him to another house for security reasons.

``He was sitting in his chair, waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sound of dying. When she touched him, he had passed away already.''

An American reporter said yesterday that he saw the elusive Pol Pot Friday in the jungles of northern Cambodia and witnessed the longtime Khmer Rouge guerrilla leader's "trial" by former followers who mutinied against him last month.

Nate Thayer, a staff correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review and an occasional contributor to The Washington Post, saw the deposed leader of the radical communist group at Anlong Veng, a Khmer Rouge stronghold now controlled by mutinous remnants of Pol Pot's guerrilla army. It was the first time in 18 years that a Western reporter had seen the mastermind of Cambodia's 1970s holocaust, in which more than 1 million people died by execution or from disease, starvation and overwork in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule.

"I witnessed his public trial and denunciation and sentence to life imprisonment," Thayer said by telephone from Bangkok. He said Pol Pot and three of his top military commanders were sentenced for "crimes of genocide" by a Khmer Rouge tribunal in an open-sided meeting hall after a two-hour trial attended by local villagers and Khmer Rouge militiamen. Thayer described Pol Pot as looking "old and defeated" as he sat before the tribunal and heard himself denounced. White-haired and frail-looking, the former dictator walked with a cane and was said to be suffering from an undisclosed illness. Thayer called the scene the "most extraordinary event" he has ever witnessed, the equivalent of "seeing Hitler in his bunker." He said he brought out photos and videotape that are "really historical." Thayer said the Review has exclusive rights to his story and that he could not divulge further details until the weekly magazine's cover story is published later this week. He declined to say whether he had spoken to Pol Pot, who is believed to be 69 years old and has been reported to be in poor health. The trial Thayer referred to occurred Friday in Anlong Veng at what Khmer Rouge radio described as a mass meeting of the movement's followers. In a broadcast Saturday, the group's clandestine radio station said that "thousands of people held a meeting and condemned and sentenced Pol Pot and his squad that had carried out serious rebellious deeds against the people." The broadcast said Pol Pot and unidentified members of his "genocidal clique" were sentenced to "life imprisonment" by representatives of "the people, the army and cadres." Thayer, 37, who has traveled to Khmer Rouge zones repeatedly in recent years, was allowed to attend the ceremony with an American cameraman. He has lived in Southeast Asia off and on since 1981 and speaks Khmer, the Cambodian language. Videotape of the scene is to be broadcast Monday night on ABC's Nightline program under an arrangement among the network, Thayer and the Review. Thayer said his forthcoming story in the Review would make clear that Pol Pot's long rule over the Khmer Rouge is over and that the trial was "no political trick." He said Pol Pot was clearly displeased that the event was witnessed by an American journalist and cameraman. The two were the first westerners to go to Anlong Veng and make it out alive, Thayer said. A British expert on land-mine removal and two French tourists were captured by the Khmer Rouge in the area and have not been seen since. According to Cambodian, Thai and Western sources, Pol Pot has been held under house arrest at a site north of Anlong Veng close to the Thai border since last month, when a major dispute split the Khmer Rouge's already depleted ranks. The rift was apparently provoked by the efforts of some Khmer Rouge elements to strike a deal with Prince Norodom Ranariddh, then Cambodia's co-prime minister, under which the Khmer Rouge would have been allowed to join Ranariddh's political organization in return for dropping their "provisional government" and publicly recognizing the Cambodian constitution and government. As part of the arrangement, sources said, the Khmer Rouge remnants in Anlong Veng were to break definitively with Pol Pot and two other bloodstained leaders, Khmer Rouge defense chief Son Sen and guerrilla commander Ta Mok, leaving the movement in the hands of longtime nominal leader Khieu Samphan and a younger generation of Khmer Rouge commanders and cadres. But the deal fell apart -- by one account, when no foreign country would agree to let Pol Pot and the others take up residence in exile. Early on June 10, Son Sen and his family were slain in Anlong Veng in a purge attributed to Pol Pot. Ta Mok, who may also have been targeted, sent forces in pursuit of Pol Pot and a dwindling band of followers, capturing them 10 days later. Ailing and exhausted, Pol Pot and his longtime deputy, Nuon Chea, were carried into a Khmer Rouge jungle base in hammocks, according to Gen. Nhek Bun Chhay, a military aide to Ranariddh who at the time was trying to negotiate the handover of Pol Pot for trial before an international tribunal. Khmer Rouge radio declared then that Pol Pot had committed "treason" but indicated no willingness to turn him over for such a trial. Speculation grew that he was dead or that the events in Anlong Veng were a ruse to camouflage his continued manipulation of the movement he led for 35 years. The holding of a public "trial" by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge captors suggests there is little prospect he will be brought to justice in an international setting. The negotiations between Ranariddh's faction of Cambodia's coalition government and the Khmer Rouge remnants prompted a government coup July 5 and 6 by co-prime minister Hun Sen, who accused Ranariddh's partisans of trying to bring Khmer Rouge guerrillas into Phnom Penh to bolster the prince's forces. By holding an ad hoc "trial" of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge remnants apparently are still trying to position themselves to wage a political struggle against Hun Sen's rule while maintaining the group's diminished guerrilla force for protection.

October 14, 2011

(AP pickup of Far Eastern Economic Review story released hours before Pol Pot committed suiced upon hearing the news broadcast on VOA Khmer language service at 8:00PM 15 April, 1998) 04-14-1998 HONG KONG (AP) _ Cambodia's Khmer Rouge officials have told a Hong Kong-based magazine they want to hand their former leader Pol Pot over to an international tribunal.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's army says it has trapped remaining Khmer Rouge forces in the mountains near the Thai border, and is poised to finish them off.

The Far Eastern Economic Review reported in its latest issue that the Khmer Rouge rebels have asked Review correspondent Nate Thayer for advice on how to deliver the notorious Pol Pot to the authorities.

Gen. Khem Nuon reportedly made the request Saturday during an interview with Thayer at the Thai-Cambodian border.

Khmer Rouge forces have held Pol Pot, 73, under house arrest since June, when they ousted him in a bloody internal power struggle.

Thayer interviewed Pol Pot last year after attending a communist-style ``People's Tribunal'' where the rebels denounced the former leader.

Gen. Nuon reportedly said the Khmer Rouge was unable to contact the United Sates or other countries, and asked Thayer to put them in contact with the ``right people.''

Thayer suggested they contact the International Committee of the Red Cross, the report said.

Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh in 1975 and ruled Cambodia until 1979, presiding over the deaths of an estimated 2 million people. A Vietnamese invasion in 1979 forced the Khmer Rouge to retreat back to the jungle.

There have been calls for Pol Pot to be brought before the International Court of Justice in the Hague to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The rebels hope handing Pol Pot to the authorities will bring food, medicine and other international support for the beleaguered Khmer Rouge.

According to Cambodian military sources, the army is currently hammering the Khmer Rouge guerillas near their former mountain stronghold along the Thai border.

Reports indicate Khmer Rouge head Ta Mok and an undetermined number of hard-line guerillas are holed up in the jungle peaks and attempting a last desperate stand.

Most of the government forces are made up of Khmer Rouge defectors, who oppose their former comrades' refusal to strike a peace deal with Phnom Penh.

Some 5,000 defectors are waiting out the fighting 25 miles south of the battle zone. The government said they will send them and their families home when it is safe.

October 12, 2011

Torturer compares himself to St. Paul

BANGKOK, Thailand - Cambodians know him as the cruelest of the Khmer Rouge torturers, the author of such directives as "Use the hot method, even if it kills him" and, in the margin of a list of 17 children, "Kill them all."

In his own mind, he is St. Paul, a persecutor who renounced his past and became a Christian evangelist.

Kang Kek Ieu, better known by his revolutionary nickname, Duch, was the head of the Khmer Rouge secret police and the commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and killed. In the 20 years since the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power, he converted to Christianity and devoted himself to spreading the Gospel and to helping refugees who fled the brutality of his regime. "I think my biography is something like Paul's," he told Nate Thayer, an American reporter who recounted his strange story in an article last week in the Far Eastern Economic Review. "I feel very sorry about the killings and the past," said Duch (pronounced Dook), who is now 56 and had been living quietly and anonymously in western Cambodia. "I wanted to be a good communist. Now in the second half of my life, I want to serve God by doing God's work to help people." But he sought to make it clear that he had not tortured and killed for the fun of it. Indeed, he portrayed himself as a harried bureaucrat, constantly concerned about the quality of his product. "I did not get any pleasure about my work," he assured Thayer, speaking in broken English and in French. "All the confessions of my prisoners - I worried, is that true or not?" Almost as extraordinary as his personal story is the fact that, for the past two years, Cambodian authorities have known where he is, according to Thayer, and have made no move to arrest him. A senior Cambodian Justice official said Thursday that even now that Duch's whereabouts have been revealed, there are still no plans to put him in custody, as a defendant or a witness against other leaders. "I have no plan to summon him to Phnom Penh as a witness in Ta Mok's case," said Ngin Sam An, the investigating judge in the case of the only Khmer Rouge official to have been arrested, the commander Ta Mok. "There are also no plans yet to charge him separately with crimes." Youk Chhang, a researcher who has prepared evidence against Khmer Rouge leaders at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, called Duch a "very essential" witness against the people who are responsible for the deaths of more than a million people when they held power from 1975 to 1979. "He is the key to the conviction of Khmer Rouge leaders. His testimony can show that they were aware of what was happening," Youk Chhang said. Prime Minister Hun Sen has resisted international demands that other Khmer Rouge leaders be arrested, saying he fears this could cause a violent reaction among their followers, who now live in semiautonomous areas in the north and west of the country. Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are prominent among these leaders. The two men surrendered last December and were given a guided tour of the country before returning to the security of the remote Khmer Rouge- controlled town of Pailin. In the interview, Duch implicated both men, as well as Ta Mok, as leaders who ordered the torture and killings he carried out at the prison known as S-21. "The first was Pol Pot," he said, naming the Khmer Rouge leader who died a year ago. "The second was Nuon Chea, the third Ta Mok." He added: "Khieu Samphan knew of the killings, but less than the others." The overriding rule at Tuol Sleng, Thayer quoted Duch, was a simple one: "Whoever was arrested must die." When a Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, Duch fled with other Khmer Rouge leaders into the jungles. According to his own account he left the movement in 1992 and became a teacher. Then, under assumed names, he worked until a few months ago with United Nations and private relief organizations. It was at that time that he converted to Christianity, he said. "After my experience in life I decided I must give my spirit to God," he said. Duch, whose thin face, large teeth and prominent ears made him one of the more recognizable faces in photographs of the Khmer Rouge, said he was fully prepared to face trial. "I have done very bad things in my life," he said, the first Khmer Rouge leader to make that admission. "Now it is time to bear the consequences of my actions."

Khmer Rouge Torturer Gives Interview

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (AP) -- Eight Westerners were among the 14,000 people tortured and executed two decades ago at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, the former commandant said in a magazine interview.

Kaing Khek Iev, known as Duch, said American, British, French, Australian and New Zealand citizens were tortured with electric shocks for a month by the prison's chief interrogator, Mam Nay, before being killed.

Speaking in an interview published Thursday in the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review, Duch voiced remorse for the killings and said he would be willing to testify against Khmer Rouge leaders.

However, since the interview, Duch has disappeared. The Review said in a news release Wednesday that he had gone into hiding in fear for his life.

Human rights groups and experts on the Khmer Rouge genocide have said Duch could be killed to keep him from testifying before a Cambodian or international court.

The journalist who conducted the interview told The Associated Press that Duch said a former Khmer Rouge now in the Cambodian military police visited him last week and issued a veiled threat, saying, ``We see you have been talking to the bad people.''

Magazine correspondent Nate Thayer said Duch has good reason to be afraid.

``He is the link between the command-and-control and the killing machine,'' Thayer said. ``I'm sure there are a lot of people nervous that he will name them.''

In the interview with Duch, the former commandant said prisoners were killed ``like chickens.''

``Usually, we slit their throats,'' he said, drawing his finger across his neck.

The Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975 and transformed the country into a slave labor camp, causing the death of an estimated 1.7 million people from overwork, starvation and execution. They were toppled in 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion.

The government has given most Khmer Rouge leaders de facto amnesties in exchange for ending a long guerrilla war.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge field officer, has rejected calls for a U.N.-organized tribunal, insisting that Cambodia can handle the trials with help from foreign jurists.

October 11, 2011

Photo: Pol Pot Dead. Nate Thayer, standing, alive. It is unclear who looks like more of a threat to society

Pol Pot dead with cotton in his nose 12 hours after he died at 10:15 PM April 15, 1998. Fighting was raging in this jungle on the mountain north of Anlong Veng, the Khmer Rouge final headquarters they lost to government forces and defecting Khmer Rouge in the days before. I had been called by the Khmer Rouge to these jungles in the days before to tell me that they were now willing to turn Pol Pot over to face an international criminal tribunal for crimes against humanity. He heard my Far Easterrn Economic Review report rebroadcast on the Voice of America Khmer language service at 8:00PM on the 15th of April. He took a lethal dose of Valium and the anti-malarial drug Chloroquine. Two hours and 15 minutes later he was dead. His 37 year old wife informed his nemesis Ta Mok. The Khmer Rouge Army chief of staff called me five minuttes later in a panic, having just lost his last negotiating card. Weeks later Mok was captured. He died in prison awaiting charges for the deaths of thousands. Within weeks the remaining Khmer Rouge disintegrated.

.

Photo Copyright: Nate Thayer. All rights reserved. No reuse or publication allowed without written permission from the author

"He illuminated a page of history that would have been lost to the world had he not spent years in the Cambodian jungle, in a truly extraordinary quest for first-hand knowledge of the Khmer Rouge and their murderous leader. His investigations of the Cambodian political world required not only great risk and physical hardship but also mastery of an ever-changing cast of factional characters."[4]

According to Vaudine England of the BBC, "Many of the region's greatest names in reporting made their mark in the pages of the Review, from the legendary Richard Hughes of Korean War fame, to Nate Thayer, the journalist who found Cambodia's Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot."[5]

Thayer was also the first person in 57 years to turn down a prestigious Peabody Award, because he did not want to share it with ABC News' Nightline whom he believed stole his story and deprived him and the Far Eastern Economic Review of income.[6][7]

He began his career in Southeast Asia on the Thai-Cambodian border, taking part in an academic research project in which he interviewed 50 Cham survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities at Nong Samet Refugee Camp in 1984.[15][16] He then returned to Massachusetts where he worked briefly as the Transportation Director for the state Office of Handicapped Affairs.[17][18] Thayer himself noted, "I got fired. I was a really bad bureaucrat."[19]

He later worked for Soldier of Fortune Magazine reporting on guerrilla combat in Burma,[20] and in 1989 he began reporting for the Associated Press from the Thai-Cambodian border.[21] In October 1989 he was nearly killed when an anti-tank mine exploded under a truck he was riding in.[22] In 1991 he moved to Cambodia where he began writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review.[23][24]

In August 1992 Thayer traveled to Mondulkiri Province and visited the last of the FULROMontagnard guerrillas who had remained loyal to their former American commanders.[25] Thayer informed the group that FULRO's president Y Bham Enuol had been executed by the Khmer Rouge seventeen years previously.[26] The FULRO troops surrendered their weapons in October 1992; many of this group were given asylum in the United States.[27][28]

In April 1994 Thayer participated in (and funded) the Cambodian Kouprey Research Project, a $30,000, two-week, 150 km field survey to find the rare Cambodian bovine known as the kouprey.[29] Thayer later wrote: "After compiling a team of expert jungle trackers, scientists, security troops, elephant mahouts and one of the most motley and ridiculous looking groups of armed journalists in recent memory, we marched cluelessly into Khmer Rouge-controlled jungles along the old Ho Chi Minh trail."[30]

In early 1997 he was again expelled from Cambodia for exposing connections between Prime MinisterHun Sen and heroin traffickers.[34][35] Thayer then decided to pursue a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University.

Nate Thayer became world famous in July 1997 when he and Asiaworks Television cameraman David McKaige managed to visit the Anlong Veng Khmer Rouge jungle camp inside Cambodia where Pol Pot was being tried for treason.[36] Thayer had hoped for an interview but was disappointed:

"Pol Pot said nothing. They made it clear and I believed them, that I was to interview Pol Pot after the trial. Pol Pot literally had to be carried away from the trial--he was unable to walk--and I was not able to talk to him. I did try to talk to him... he did not answer any questions, and he did not speak during the trial.[37]"

Thayer noted, "Every ounce of his being was struggling to maintain some last vestige of dignity."[38]

Thayer believed that the trial had been staged by the Khmer Rouge for him and McKaige:

"It was put on specifically for us, to take the message to the world that Pol Pot has been denounced. They had reported on their radio, on June 19, that Pol Pot had been purged. No one believed them. After five years of lying over their radio, there was no reason anyone should take what they say credibly. It was clear to them that they needed an independent, credible witness to show what was happening."[39]

"[Koppel] returned home with a copy of my videotape. I gave it to him in exchange for his strict promise that its only use would be on Nightline. However, once he had the copy of the tape, ABC News released video, still pictures, and even transcripts of my interviews to news organizations throughout the world. Protected by its formidable legal and public relations department, ABC News made still photographs from the video, slapped the “ABC News Exclusive” logo on them, and hand delivered them to newspapers, wire services, and television...All of these pictures demanded that photo credit be given to ABC News... The story won a British Press Award for “Scoop of the Year” for a British paper I didn’t even know had published it...I even won a Peabody Award as a “correspondent for Nightline." But I turned it down—-the first time anyone had rejected a Peabody in its 57-year history."[41]

ABC News responded that they had "agreed to pay Nate Thayer the sizable sum of $350,000 for the rights to use his footage of former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. Despite the fact that ABC provided prominent and repeated credit and generous remuneration for his work, Mr. Thayer initiated a five-year barrage of complaints coupled with repeated demands for more money."[42] In 2002 Thayer sued Koppel and ABC News for $30 million in punitive damages and unspecified compensatory damages.

"First, I want to let you know that I came to join the revolution, not to kill the Cambodian people. Look at me now. Do you think ... am I a violent person? No. So, as far as my conscience and my mission were concerned, there was no problem. This needs to be clarified...My experience was the same as that of my movement. We were new and inexperienced and events kept occurring one after the other which we had to deal with. In doing that, we made mistakes as I told you. I admit it now and I admitted it in the notes I have written. Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese. For the love of the nation and the people it was the right thing to do but in the course of our actions we made mistakes.[47]"

Thayer visited Anlong Veng again on April 16, 1998, only a day after Pol Pot had died. After photographing the corpse he briefly interviewed Ta Mok and Pol Pot's second wife Muon, who told Thayer, "What I would like the world to know is that he was a good man, a patriot, a good father."[48] Thayer was then asked to transport Pol Pot's body in his pickup truck to the site a short distance away[49] where it was later cremated.[50]

In April 1999 Thayer, alongside photojournalist Nic Dunlop, interviewed Kang Kek Iew (Comrade Duch) for the Far Eastern Economic Review after Dunlop had tracked Duch to Samlaut and suspected strongly that he was the former director of the notorious S-21 security prison.[51] Dunlop wanted Duch to provide clues that would reveal his identity, and Thayer began probing Duch's story that he was Hang Pin, an aid worker and a born-again Christian:

"Then Nate said, 'I believe that you also worked with the security services during the Khmer Rouge Period?' Duch appeared startled and avoided our eyes...Again Nate put the question to him...He looked unsettled and his eyes darted about...He then glanced at Nate's business card...'I believe, Nic, that your friend has interviewed Monsieur Ta Mok and Monsieur Pol Pot?'...He sat back down...and inhaled deeply. 'It is God's will that you are here,' he said."[52]

Duch surrendered to the authorities in Phnom Penh following the publication of this interview.[53][54] Dunlop and Thayer were first runners-up for the 1999 SAIS-Novartis Prize for Excellence in International Journalism, presented by the The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, for "exposing the inside story of the Khmer Rouge killing machine."[55]

ESCAPES: The Living Fields; Cambodia's Most Famous War Reporter Retreats to Dorchester County, Md.

"If I were writing about this area," the war correspondent says with one arm draped over the steering wheel of his pickup, "that would be my lead right there."

The war correspondent is squinting down the sunny main street of Cambridge, Md.--a rank of blank storefronts and shabby 1960s siding. Specifically, he's pointing at a digital clock that glows feebly on the side of a two-story corner law office. "That clock has been six hours slow since I got here. It's the perfect emblem for this place."

This place is Dorchester County, Md., a working Chesapeake borough less than two hours from Washington where it sometimes seems the digital age has progressed no further than a half-bright digital clock overlooking a sleepy downtown. The war reporter--who has a hard time looking at any scene without mentally crafting a paragraph about it--is Nate Thayer, a hard-eyed, trouble-hunting journalist who has infiltrated some of the bloodiest jungle strongholds in Southeast Asia. To the surprise of his family, colleagues and readers, the 40- year-old Thayer recently retreated to placid Dorchester after more than 15 years of chasing danger around the world. Last spring, he bought a capacious old farmhouse and 70 acres on Church Creek, less than a mile as the heron flies from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. He's quietly writing a book and tending the fields with his longtime sweetheart, Carol Bean, and Scoop, a scrappy mutt they rescued from the slums of Bangkok. After a long adrenaline ride through hot spots and hellholes, Thayer says he came to Dorchester for a little peace. Reluctantly.

"I was the world's most unmotivated buyer," he laughs, walking across the street to his frequent breakfast spot at the counter of Doris Mae's Restaurant. "I looked at waterfront property all over the world, Thailand, France. When I finally came over here, everyone said, 'Don't even look in Dorchester, there's nothing there,' which immediately intrigued me. The overwhelming sentiment here is not to change things. That's why I like it."

A white-haired woman at the griddle looks up as Thayer enters. He's an imposing figure in any setting, but particularly in a small- town egg joint with Navy recruitment posters on the wall. He's tall, lithe and swimmer-strong (from daily laps at the Cambridge YMCA). With a shaved head, a natural scowl and an ever-present pinch of black snuff under his front lip, Thayer looks downright piratical. It's a broke-nose mien that serves him well in the dyspeptic bars where he does much of his reporting, but one that belies his blue- blood lineage (his father was an ambassador to Singapore) and his own intellectual bent as a rapacious reader who recently did a turn as a think-tank scholar with Johns Hopkins University.

The waitress greets Thayer in a motherly way and asks if he wants his eggs poached, an item not on the menu. He says yes, asks her the news and looks around at the orderly calmness that pervades this community. "Having lived so long in the absence of rules," he says, "I've come to appreciate a properly organized society."

Thayer began his career as a flouter of rules, a hard-drinking 28- year-old with a taste for conflict and serious weapons. As a Bangkok- based freelance reporter, he quickly gained a reputation for going where others couldn't--or wouldn't--go. He learned the local dialects, lived and walked in the jungle with the bad guys and endured the sundry malignancies of modern Indochina: multiple bouts of cerebral malaria, kidnappings, a land mine explosion that shattered his leg and ruined his hearing. But the stories kept coming. In 1992, along the old Ho Chi Minh trail, Thayer discovered a forgotten band of mountain rebels who had to be convinced the Vietnam War was over and their American sponsors long gone. He has exposed heroin kingpins, corrupt politicians and murderous generals. "I want to go to my grave making people with guns, power and money nervous," he says with a frank grin. "I love it."

But more than any other, Thayer has been in pursuit of one villain for the whole of his career: Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge dictator who oversaw the greatest mass murder since Hitler. To work his way into Khmer Rouge territory, Thayer allowed himself to be captured numerous times, each occasion making friendly with another local Communist field commander. He tramped, on one trip, through more than 400 miles of jungle with Khmer Rouge units. He shared their mess and was treated in their field hospital after the truck he was riding in tripped a land mine and he woke up with his head in the engine compartment and a companion's severed leg across his chest. Finally, in 1998, Thayer's single-minded pursuit led him to what many consider the scoop of the decade, the first on-the-record interview with Pol Pot since he was driven from Phnom Penh in 1979. When they met in a sweltering jungle hut, the man responsible for killing an estimated 2 million people fixed his gaze on Thayer and said slowly, "I've known your name for a long, long time."

Five months later, Pol Pot--old and broken--was dead.

Somehow, it's even more jarring to hear Thayer's matter-of-fact telling of his extraordinary history as he moves through his now decidely ordinary life in Dorchester County. After breakfast, he rumbles down brick-paved High Street, past the boat basin crowded with both yachts and work boats. The big, shady Victorian sea captains' houses along here are slowly being bought and restored. It's an antique waterside neighborhood that seems like it could be, maybe, on the verge of better times.

"I think it's going to take off," Thayer says, pulling up to a large, well-groomed red house with a noble front porch. It's Cambridge House, a bed-and-breakfast that Thayer wants to visit. He entertains a steady stream of globe-trotting reporters, photographers and diplomats at his new place, and he considers it a host's duty to be able to recommend local inns and restaurants. Inside, innkeeper Stuart Schefers cautiously shares Thayer's optimism about the county.

"Slowly it's coming back," says Schefers. In addition to Cambridge House--already popular with bicyclists, birders and hunters-- Schefers is a partner in the Chesapeake Grill, one of a number of ambitious new restaurants in the area. "It's been neglected, but it is one of the few areas around the bay that hasn't been ruined by overdevelopment."

Driving the growing feeling that Dorchester may finally cash in on the tourism that has plumped up St. Michaels Island just across the Choptank River is a Hyatt resort being built hard on the edge of town. The $150 million, 450-acre development is slated to open in Christmas 2001, instantly becoming the biggest employer in the county. After decades of placidly watching tourist dollars zoom through town at 60 mph on their way to Ocean City, Dorchester may be in for a boom of its own.

A few minutes later, Thayer is driving down the wattle of shoreline below Cambridge, an intricate terrain laced with the many creeks and marshes that feed the Chesapeake. There are few buildings, just some modest homes, a sun-baked one-room schoolhouse where young Harriet Tubman once learned her letters and, tucked in a shoreside forest, an ancient Anglican church and cemetery. The corn fields are in stubble now; the sorghum is up and the waterfowl are on the wing. It's duck-hunting country and through the autumn, Thayer--who has heard some gunfire in his time--listens to the reports echoing across this wet, flat land.

"It's so dominated by water," he says, gazing at the low white crab boats working up the creek. Thayer is a slow, deliberate talker, and he drives the same way. Old farmers in tractor caps pass him in pickups even shabbier than his. "It's steeped in classic rural traditions, agriculture, fishing. That's what drives life here."

That will remain, Thayer believes, even if more people discover what he has, in part, because the vast 25,000-acre Blackwater refuge keeps adding more land. But there's also a doggedness to the local culture that will survive the lure of quick-buck development. (And already, more Volvos lugging bikes and kayaks are to be seen on the local roads, pulling into B&Bs and restaurants that cater to city visitors who come for the Eastern Shore the way it used to be.)

"You find that they are determined to maintain a farmer's way of life, even though they could make a killing by selling out to developers," says the war correspondent. As he rolls by, window open, a blazing white egret lifts out of the reeds with heavy, angelic flaps. "They know better than I do what a good place this is."

ESCAPES KEYS

Getting There: Dorchester County (war-free since 1865) is on the Eastern Shore, about 90 miles from Washington. From the Beltway, take Route 50 east all the way to Cambridge. James Michener set part of "Chesapeake" here, and it's the birthplace of Harriet Tubman (Home Towne Tours offers tours of Tubman sites, 410-228-0401).

Lodging: Cambridge House (112 High St., 410-221-7700, www.cambridgehousebandb.com) is a stout, begabled old captain's mansion at the town waterfront. Rooms are $120, with a five-course dinner available with weekend packages ($329). Twenty-eight miles south of Cambridge, Wingate Manor (2335 Wingate-Bishop's Head Rd., 888-397-8717, $80 to $120) is a comfortable, roomy old pile hard on the Honga River. Bikes available gratis, boats for rent.

Eating: Rolston's Chesapeake Grill (321 High St.) makes it no longer necessary to cross the Choptank for upscale steak and seafood (entrees start at $20, with a less expensive bar and bistro up front). Hysers (824 Locust St.), an honest lunch counter, mixes a serious ice cream soda.

Antiquing: Dorchester remains bargain country, with almost a dozen antiques shops around Cambridge proper, the largest being the Packing House Antique Mall (411 Dorchester Ave., 410-221-8544).

September 21, 2011

Freelancers’ Vital Role in International Reporting

With the rise of media conglomerates, foreign news has been shoved aside.

By Nate Thayer

Thayer in a Khmer Rouge controlled area of Cambodia. Photo by Roland Eng.

At an annual gathering of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in July, I sat with Ahmed Rashid, a renowned Pakistani journalist, and discussed the decreasing appetite for international news. Rashid has spent a lifetime writing about Afghanistan. He spoke then of diminishing interest from editors for his stories. “No one is interested in Afghanistan anymore,” he concluded. His brilliant book, “Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia,” was newly published and was meeting with a good response from those who maintained an interest in this “irrelevant” corner of the world.

Typical for an accomplished and respected freelance journalist, Rashid writes for a number of publications, relying on a core handful of news organizations to make a living. But, he said in July, even these were rejecting stories they once would have published. The Islamabad-based Rashid said it was a struggle to get anything published on Central Asia in the British- and American-owned publications he relied on.

Only weeks later, after the events of September 11, I smile as I pass my small-town bookstore and see Ahmed Rashid’s “Taliban” prominently placed on a rack next to the cash register—number one on The New York Times bestseller list. I see Rashid regularly on television and quoted copiously by journalists now descending on the region—22 years after he began reporting full time from and about Afghanistan.

The pleasure is mixed with melancholy for the state of international reporting. Hundreds of freshly arriving foreign correspondents obscure the fact that they are often dispatched by major news organizations to cover international events only after they are overtaken by them. And their presence obscures the crucial role that local and freelance journalists play in ensuring that these otherwise forgotten places are properly covered in the absence of a major media presence.

Further, the key role played by “foreign” freelance journalists in providing the backbone of international coverage highlights the importance of the principle of a press free from the influence of any government. Many, if not most, of those who gather information for the American-owned press are not American. And many of those who read or view the American-owned press are not American. And for those who are, so what? The concept that reporters should have some allegiance to their government is not only fundamentally contrary to the role of a credible and independent press, it presupposes a false premise: that news organizations are homogeneously comprised of nationals of the country of which they have their primary audience.

It is freelancers and local journalists who are now playing a crucial role in Central Asia in ensuring that the world understands these events as they have rocketed to the forefront of international attention. When a story forces media executives to react to events, their reporters must turn to those who are informed and on the ground. Invariably, those they turn to are freelance local journalists such as Ahmed Rashid.

At the same time, the events of September 11 should have sent a cautionary signal to major media conglomerates, which increasingly are controlled by people who have demonstrated an insufficient commitment to the role of a free press and well informed public in world affairs. These news outlets are increasingly driven by their marketing departments, public relations people and lawyers, whose values too often infiltrate the newsrooms and effectively seize control. Non-journalists are increasingly determining what is news and treating it as a commodity, selling it like shampoo or cars.

The world press has indeed been absent from Central Asia since the Soviets and the CIA pulled out a decade ago. Before September 11, how many news organizations had staff reporters in Islamabad, much less in Kabul, or in the countries just north of Afghanistan? Precious few. Not The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, nor any other American news organization except The Associated Press (often staffed by “local hires,” usually nationals). Nor did the three American broadcast networks—which eviscerated their foreign news operations during the past decade—have staff correspondents in the region.

Lessons From Cambodia and Afghanistan

There are useful comparisons to be made between what is happening now in Afghanistan (and with Rashid’s reporting) and the decade I spent as a freelance reporter in Cambodia. Both Rashid and I had chosen areas of focus that often held marginal interest in the ebb and flow of international attention. Neither of us was a staff correspondent, though each was listed as a “senior writer” on the masthead of the Far Eastern Economic Review, the leading Asian weekly newsmagazine, owned by Dow Jones. Our compensation came primarily from our published words.

Like Afghanistan, Cambodia was, after a spurt of international focus, relegated to the dustbin of obscure civil wars. Interest in both countries always had little to do with the country itself, but rather the proxy role each played to larger global players. Once epicenters of cold war conflicts that served as a hot theater for foreign power interests, by the mid 1990’s neither Afghanistan nor Cambodia had much economic, political or strategic value to the world—or to its media.

Like the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan, the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot continued to play a major role in Cambodia’s politics after outside interest diminished. And, despite the absence of international attention, the domestic dynamics of these conflicts continued largely unchanged, ready to erupt. Like bin Laden, Pol Pot was seemingly an inaccessible enigma, directing a monstrous political movement and hiding in impenetrable terrain. And similar to Rashid’s predicament this past summer when I was a freelancer covering Cambodia, editors at my primary news outlets constantly discouraged me from pursuing stories and often rejected ones I wrote. These stories were dismissed as too obscure, costly, dangerous, or merely “uninteresting to our readers.”

Such reactions explain why there has developed such a dearth of in-depth international journalism. This essential yet expensive genre of reporting has few institutional supporters. Fortunately, as a freelancer I had the latitude (if not the expense account) to ignore those who urged me to stop my investigations. Had I been a staff reporter covering Cambodia—and therefore required to abide by instructions of those who had the right to dictate what stories I could pursue—I would not have kept reporting many stories that were deemed “important” as time went on.

The absence of coverage of these regions is usually a reflection of the skeletal resources that major media organizations devote to foreign coverage. And that is a decision often dictated by the business side. The Afghans and Cambodians, after all, aren’t likely to be promising advertising targets or subscribers. Therefore, the argument goes, there is little “reader interest.” And, in the absence of staff journalists based in such places, it can often appear that there is little of newsworthy significance. But, as the events of September 11 made clear, this is not necessarily true. There are important stories to tell and it is crucial for news organizations to be prepared to cover news properly when events demand.

The author standing next to the body of Pol Pot.

The Role and Life of a Freelance Journalist

While publications naturally like to take credit for work they publish, any modicum of journalistic accomplishments I might have had were not wholly supported—financially or otherwise—by any publication. Freelancers usually must pay the expense of research, travel and phone upfront with no guarantees of having their work published or expenses reimbursed. Given the substantial costs of reporting, many stories go unreported for the simple reason that there aren’t journalists to do them.

It is true that properly covering many obscure and complicated conflicts often bears little immediate fruit. I emerged from most forays with precious little, often after weeks of work, an empty wallet, and thousands of kilometers of travel. But even though a meeting or trip would often not bear fruit worthy of an article, it all added up to a body of unique knowledge and access. My persistence, like the work of many freelancers, left me in good position to write knowledgeably when newsworthy events happened. Like most “local” journalists and freelancers, I had what visiting journalists did not—the essential context for any story, pertinent background and, after years of cultivation, well developed sources in place. At such moments, I could usually offer plausible and well informed analysis of what a news story meant.

Like many other reporters, I prefer to work as a freelancer, even though it’s a job that is often like being a mistress. The editors’ attitude: “Why buy the cow, if you can get the milk for free?” They compliment me profusely after each encounter and give me little stipends to keep me feeling wanted and coming back. They speak wistfully of how much they wish they could hire me and that someday we might have a permanent relationship. Like two illicit lovers who can’t look each other in the eye, we both generally leave our encounters satisfied. We each accept the arrangement as good under the circumstances. And I am fully aware that the focus of my reporting makes me rather unemployable by nature—not marriage material.

In June 1997, I was still a freelance journalist when Cambodia, again, imploded in civil war. Hundreds of journalists descended on the country. There were reports from the jungle suggesting Pol Pot was on the run, and fighting raged on several fronts throughout the country. I’d already spent years reporting in inhospitable jungles (though I’d been based in Phnom Penh and Bangkok), attempting to find Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge.

I called editors seeking plane fare to go back to Cambodia. “I believe I might be able to get to Pol Pot,” I said. I was flatly turned down. I borrowed money and got on a plane that day. Six weeks later, I emerged from Khmer Rouge-controlled jungles having gotten to Khmer Rouge headquarters and been the only reporter to attend the “trial” of Pol Pot, one of the century’s most sought-after mass murderers. In 18 years he hadn’t been seen or photographed. For a couple of days, it became the biggest story in the world. And as a freelancer, I had the only firsthand reporting, still pictures, and video of the story.

I received thousands of calls from media wanting my pictures and story. As I sat in my office in Bangkok, journalists from the world’s major media descended like vultures. And before I’d even finished writing my story, these events were front-page news around the world. Ted Koppel of ABC News flew to Bangkok from Washington, and he returned home with a copy of my videotape. I gave it to him in exchange for his strict promise that its only use would be on “Nightline.” However, once he had the copy of the tape, ABC News released video, still pictures, and even transcripts of my interviews to news organizations throughout the world. Protected by its formidable legal and public relations department, ABC News made still photographs from the video, slapped the “ABC News Exclusive” logo on them, and hand delivered them to newspapers, wire services, and television. It also released the transcripts of my interviews to The New York Times and placed pictures and video on its Web site with instructions on how to download them. All of these pictures demanded that photo credit be given to ABC News.

Even though ABC News does not have a correspondent in Southeast Asia, it looked as though ABC News had gone and found Pol Pot. The Far Eastern Economic Review ran my story in its weekly edition a couple of days later. But already thousands of newspapers, magazines and television stations had published or broadcast the story, thanks to ABC News. The story won a British Press Award for “Scoop of the Year” for a British paper I didn’t even know had published it. The Wall Street Journal (also owned by Dow Jones), for which I’d never written about this story, also won several awards for its coverage. I even won a Peabody Award as a “correspondent for ‘Nightline.’” But I turned it down—the first time anyone had rejected a Peabody in its 57-year history. No one noticed, since ABC News banned me from attending the ceremony after I told Koppel I would reject the award.

When I watch the Afghan coverage and think about the U.S. military and American news reporters now looking vigorously for bin Laden, I remember that he has been interviewed and photographed seven times by local and freelance journalists. And when I see the American networks play “stolen” footage—obtained by Al-Jazerra and lifted off satellite transmitters—I think of the Al-Jazerra correspondents in Kabul, risking their lives and developing sources to obtain information and develop access. I am outraged that a U.S. smart bomb targeted their offices and there was scant protest. And when I see the Ken and Barbie news celebrities in their color-coordinated flak jackets reporting from the “front lines” (microphone in one hand, aerosol hair spray nearby), I picture them pouring at night over the life work of Ahmed Rashid to try to get an understanding of what the hell is going on.

With the war in Afghanistan, it is important to remember the invaluable role played by freelancers and local correspondents whose commitment to reporting gives substance to the current coverage. They play a pivotal role in maintaining a free press by delivering knowledgeable, firsthand, Wells information from the field. It is their dedication to this vital enterprise that creates the foundation for what we read and view, not the efforts of slick corporate hucksters and their willing agents who would substitute an agenda that betrays what should be our singular allegiance. That allegiance should not be to Pennsylvania Avenue, or to Wall Street, or to Madison Avenue. It should be to Main Street.

Nate Thayer was the Cambodia, then Southeast Asia, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He has written for more than 40 other publications and news services and has won numerous awards, including the 1999 SAIS-Novartis prize for Excellence in International Journalism and the first award given by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Nate Thayer vs. Pol Pot

(r)evolution...where change is the only constant

As much as I loved reporting, the highlight of my years at the Far Eastern Economic Review was editing Nate Thayer, one of the greatest investigative reporters of his generation. Nate broke the story in 1997 that Cambodia's ex-dictator, Pol Pot, was still alive and had been purged from the Khmer Rouge, the movement responsible for the deaths of some 2 million Cambodians when it held power from 1975-1979. He followed up a few months later with the first interview with Pol Pot in 18 years, shedding light on how utopian leftism absorbed in university classrooms and cafes in Paris translated to genocide back in Cambodia. Pol Pot committed suicide after he heard Nate's report, picked up by the Khmer service of VOA, that the Khmer Rouge were about to turn him over to international authorities for trial.

In an era of instant communication, when scoops are matched in hours and sometimes minutes, the Pol Pot stories went unmatched for months. That's because Nate had spent years developing contacts within the Khmer Rouge, Thai intelligence, and elsewhere to gain this access, and seized an opening when the movement turned in upon itself. By no means a Khmer Rouge apologist, he presented a straight, unvarnished picture of the past and present, and confronted Pol Pot with the evidence that he was a mass murderer. With journalism dominated by repackaged content, reporters spoon-feed by anonymous sources with agendas, and few publications besides The New Yorker and The Atlantic willing to back long investigations, these stories stand as journalistic monuments I feel privileged to have helped build.

With the Pol Pot exclusives, Nate came exhausted out of the jungle, disgorged his notes, pictures and video, and we shared the writing. It was great teamwork, and it would not have been possible without the support of another legendary journalist, then Review editor Nayan Chanda. The stories are not available online, because Nate was a freelancer on retainer with the Review, and he owns the copyright. But with his permission, I'll scan and post them on this site eventually, as they represent and important contribution to the historical record on Southeast Asia and on genocide. I also hope to see Nate complete his book about that era -- the chapters I have read are very strong.

Nate and I actually first met when we were competing reporters in Cambodia in 1991, him for AP and me for AFP. Then after we both joined the Review, I helped him pull together a package of stories that exposed how Cambodia was failing as a state, with a major Sino-Thai drug dealer paying a third of the defense budget and using the apparatus of state to grow his business -- much the way Al Qeda took over Afghanistan a few years later. We remain close friends.

The Khmer Rouge (KR), locked in a bitter war with the U.N., no longer of words, vowed that violence and instability will worsen in Cambodia in coming weeks and promised to prevent the holding of elections scheduled for late May.

In an exclusive interview with the Review, Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan on April 3 said the elections were a plot by western powers to destroy them and would never bring peace , and that they should be abandoned for a national reconciliation government led and formed by Cambodia's now powerless but titular head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

"We cannot participate in the electoral campaign or the `Untaciste' elections,'' Khieu Samphan said in a two hour interview at the Khmer Rouge compound in Phnom Penh," The Cambodian people are in a very angry mood. If the Western powers do not change their position, there is no other choice for the Cambodian people but to show their anger at the Western powers. There will certainly be more incidents such as the launching of hand grenades against the Vietnamese in Phnom Penh. We can foresee that the situation will get more unstable, more insecure, more confusing. The popular movement against the Vietnamese will increase. There will be more attacks."

September 20, 2011

B EIJING - King Norodom Sihanouk, watching from Beijing with increasing alarm the failure of peace negotiations and continuing civil war, is planting the seeds for retaking the reigns of power in Cambodia.

But he stressed he would only assume control if invited by parliament and with the agreement of the leaders of the Royal Government, particularly Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party who Sihanouk said must agree to his taking real power or such an effort would be "useless."

In an interview with the Post on June 11, Sihanouk unveiled a detailed plan to assume real power from the Royal Government and forge a national reconciliation government that gives high positions to the Khmer Rouge in order to halt the civil war.

"It is true that the current government has shown that it is not capable of stopping the process of deterioration of the situation - the overall situation," Sihanouk said in a three-hour interview at his Peking palace.

"I hope the situation of Cambodia will not be in anarchy, but if the situation is one of anarchy I will be obliged to intervene. But I will not intervene unless the parliament says that, for one or two years, we have to stop the constitutional system, like in ancient Rome, we have to let a national leader, a traditional leader return to power in order to save the situation and lead the country. If I am not too weak physically I will certainly say 'yes.'

"I must be frank. Because I love Cambodia too much I cannot let Cambodia sink like that. I cannot let it and I will have against me [co-prime ministers] Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen. Sure, sure, but how can I avoid intervening in a few months time or one year's time if the situation continues to deteriorate?"

Sihanouk currently holds the title of head of state as the constitutional monarch, but acknowledges it is a largely powerless role.

His efforts at brokering a peace accord between leaders of the government and the radical Khmer Rouge collapsed earlier this month in Pyongyang with no sign of progress. A new round of talks was to begin on June 15 in Phnom Penh, but little hope is held for any breakthrough.

Pleas by the government for international military assistance to fight the Khmer Rouge have been largely rejected by major Western powers, and instability in the countryside has gravely hampered hoped for private investment and international reconstruction aid that is needed to help bring economic improvement and political stability to the struggling regime.

Such a situation has helped the Khmer Rouge strengthen their position in recent months. A five-month government military campaign against the guerrilla faction met with no success with the government in control of less territory than before their military push.

"I warned Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen that we could not go to war in such conditions, but Mr. Hun Sen, he is definitely against my warning because he is aware of the fact that the King reigns but does not govern."

But Sihanouk said the country's two prime ministers "believe that they are able men and should not be replaced, even by Sihanouk"

And, he warned, "I must tell you frankly I think seriously of a secession", if Sihanouk attempted to take power. Without prior agreement by Hun Sen "there would be bloodshed."

"I know that Mr Hun Sen will be red in the face....when he will read your article he will say that 'we were absolutely wrong to elect Sihanouk as King, it is extremely bad, extremely dangerous and now he wants to retake power and to take the Khmer Rouge again in his government. It will be a catastrophe'. Mr Hun Sen will attack me very, very violently. I know that. But it is my duty now to tell you today that I cannot accept the death of Cambodia and the Cambodian people and race. I cannot before I die. I prefer to die at the service of my nation to help save it rather than to die in Peking and in the hospital and letting my homeland sink completely and disappear from the map of the world.

"As Prince Ranariddh used to say to me 'please let me go on governing Cambodia because I have taken power for just a few months. You have to wait until next year to see the results. But there is another opinion among the people and among the politicians. The other opinion is that if they allow this government to go on for one year Cambodia will completely collapse-not just the government but the country itself."

Sihanouks comments come amid a backdrop of popular discontent, including among leading figures in the government, military, and national assembly who are frustrated at their own party leaders inability to achieve stability since last year's elections.

Sihanouk said that a number of senior "politicians, military figures, and in the administration" had come to him asking him to seize power in recent months.

Sihanouk stressed that a return to power would require the approval of the parliament. The constitution allows the parliament-with two thirds approval of the 120 member body-to give "extraordinary" powers to the King during a time of crisis.

It is this fact that supporters of the move to bring Sihanouk back to power are attempting- essentially a constitutional coup that would be led by members of the two major parties in the coalition government behind the backs of their own leaders.

But Sihanouk is well aware that without the support of the CPP - which controls the bulk of the army, security services, and state administration - his efforts would be doomed.

"I will accept to return to power, but I need also Hun Sen's support. If he does not support me it is useless for me to go back to Cambodia because I do not want to shed blood to fight a secession led by Hun Sen.... I need Hun Sen. I need his support. I need the approval of his party. I cannot return to power to go back to Cambodia unless I have the assurance that Hun Sen and his party will join me in my government."

"I want my power from the parliament....I will not let them have a pretext to condemn me as a dictator....I will accept power on the condition that the parliament will give it to me and I will return to Cambodia only if Mr Hun Sen's party joins me."

"As far as Ranariddh is concerned, I am sure that my son will not betray me...He will accept certainly. Not with joy. With sadness certainly. With anger certainly," Sihanouk said, "But he will I am sure not rebel."

Aides say that Sihanouk will try to come back to Cambodia in July or August, depending on the outcome of current medical tests in Beijing to assess the state of his cancer. He said that he has suffered from lymphoma - now in remission - bone marrow cancer, arteriosclerosis, and heart and liver ailments.

But sources say that, to date, his medical condition has responded well to treatment, and he appears strong and lively to his many visitors. "I still have cancer cells in my bone marrow - but I feel quite normal. It is in my nature. I don't like to appear like a man who is physically ill. I used to be dynamic...but in fact I have very, very, serious health problems."

"So like Charles DeGaulle from his small village of Colombay Les Deux Eglises in 1958...I may retake power.... I may imitate DeGaulle. But not now. I must wait for further deterioration of the situation."

Sihanouk outlined a detailed structure of a government that he would lead, including himself "as head of state and head of government with strong powers" and four vice presidents, which include the First and Second Prime Ministers, Sam Rainsy, and Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan.

He said that he has been thinking for some time of the possibility of retaking power. "I do not improvise. It is not just because you ask me a question. No,no, I have been thinking of this for many nights. In the nights I do not sleep well because I am thinking of the fate of my country."

He stressed that "I have no plan to take power now," and that the situation "is not desperate enough", but "in case the situation will become anarchic and desperate I would have to take power for one or two years. I did it in 1952 and 1953 to put an end to the anarchy of the Kingdom....so why not now before I die, the last mission....If Mr Hun Sen, instead of making secession, if Mr Hun Sen's party decides to join me I would be too happy to accept their support."

"My plan is very simple. I will be the head of the government. Not just the head of state, but the head of government. That means my own Prime Minister."

"I repeat I want national reconciliation and my government can only be one of national unity with all parties and I will give important portfolios to the Khmer Rouge," he said, "The program is this: the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country and a non-war situation, national reconciliation, and together with the Khmer Rouge and non-Khmer Rouge we join to rebuild our nation, and besides that I repeat we will maintain the parliament," he said, "The only difference is I will make a radical change in my non-war policy. No war with the Khmer Rouge and the Khmer Rouge in my government. It is the only change! The only change! But it is the very, very basis of my process of saving Cambodia."

But, he said, even his own wife Queen Monineath - considered Sihanouk's closest political advisor and confident - is opposed to his return to the reigns of state. "I reveal to you my wife says: 'I am definitely against your return to power. I am not your supporter in case you retake power.' So, you know I will lose even my wife. But to lose my wife,to lose Mr Hun Sen is nothing compared to Cambodia.

"For me Cambodia is my life. If Cambodia sinks I have no reason to survive. I have no reason to live. I prefer dying...."

In the aftermath of U.N. sponsored elections, Khmer Rouge supreme Pol Pot and his small group of elite collective leadership have hunkered down at a jungle base near the Thai border to try to salvage what clearly is the biggest blow to the secretive organization since the Vietnamese invasion left them in tatters 14 years ago. Their radio has refrained from reaction, repeating broadcasts day after day, and their embassies, which usually are sent daily updated messages of the leadership's political line, received no instructions in the wake of the successful polling.

Khmer Rouge sources and other analysts concur that the group is isolated, vulnerable, and obsessed with a belief that big powers together with the other Cambodian parties are plotting to deliver a final blow designed to destroy or marginalize the group. And they may be right. Many foreign analysts believe that the group has become significantly weaker since the signing of the peace accords in 1991, and that they are militarily incapable of remobilizing an army sufficient to relaunch another civil war.

A debate continues within the key foreign powers and Cambodian parties over whether the Khmer Rouge should be offered a seat at the table of a new government or war should be launched to try to destroy them.

UNTAC military analysts believe that the Khmer Rouge now field less than 15,000 troops, down from pre-peace accords estimates of more than 30,000. Analysts also say that the election process undermined their popular base of support and their morale to return to state of war, making it difficult for the group to attempt to seize control of more territory.

The election process is the culmination of the KR's worst scenario, which they have systematically and successfully tried to avoid in recent years-the destruction of a carefully formed group of domestic and international United Front allies who had served as their lifeline since their overthrow from power in 1979, and of which they are now stripped.

"An absolutely imperative premise is a policy of great national solidarity and of garnering international strength," Pol Pot told cadre in a major policy speech in late 1988 in which he analyzed the group's strategy for the years ahead.

He said the Khmer Rouge "must preserve international forces which we must time and time again bring into the greatest possible extent." And without internal popular support he said, "We won't have any state jobs to do in the villages and the sub districts, and by the same token we would not have any job to do in the parliament. Then who would protect our people and who would join our ranks? If this were the way things were then our ranks would definitely be compelled to and disintegrate and be completely dispersed," he warned.

But indeed this is essentially the position the Khmer Rouge find themselves today. By pulling out of the peace process, they made a fundamental miscalculation that other major players, particularly Prince Sihanouk and their two former guerrillas allies-the FUNCINPC party and Son Sann's BLDP-would follow suit in the face of government sponsored electoral violence. Together, the Khmer Rouge hoped, they could form a strong coalition that would replace elections and form a Sihanouk-led government in which they were included.

But the return of Prince Sihanouk from exile in Beijing in the days before the election and the strong showing of FUNCINPEC in the polls despite the government killings and intimidation of their party workers and supporters, have left the Khmer Rouge with little leverage. Their strategy that the results of the election would be abandoned in an atmosphere of violence failed, and has left them with no allies they can rely on for the first time since 1970.

Their previous alliances which were and remain essential to their survival, are evaporating. They no longer have the material or political support of the Chinese, who say they will respect the results of the elections. Other countries, such as the United States and Western countries who supported the Khmer Rouge-dominated guerrilla coalition during the Vietnamese occupation, now are focused on how to create a stable government that can defend itself against a Khmer Rouge threat. And FUNCINPEC, which needed the Khmer Rouge's military strength during the war against the Vietnamese, now finds the group a political liability.

In a February 1992 speech to cadre, Pol Pot outlined the dangers of such a scenario. "Democratic Kampuchea cannot be strong all on its own. When these guys (U.N and Western powers) strafe everybody else and leave Democratic Kampuchea on its own, it is possible for Democratic Kampuchea to be weakened. Once that happens, they will attack Democratic Kampuchea and drag the other forces into joining with Phnom Penh. It would become an alliance between the West, the (Vietnamese), the contemptible puppets (Hun Sen), and two of the three parties (FUNCINPEC and Son Sann). If this were the situation, then the Chinese, the Thais and ASEAN would all accept it whether they like it or not...That is why we need friends among the three parties until the day we die and we need (foreign) friends until the day we die," Pol Pot concluded.

The group has made clear what it wants in recent weeks. They support "fully, unconditionally, and unswervingly" the creation of "four-party provisional government of national reconciliation with Prince Sihanouk as head of state and prime minister," as well as "a national reconciliation army made up of the Cambodian armed forces of the four factions...with Sihanouk as supreme commander," according to a radio broadcast on May 17, and a similar broadcast on May 29.

Khmer Rouge sources say that they believe Sihanouk will still have to step in coming months because the election results will not lead to the formation of a stable government. But if the international community decides to back a government that evolves strictly from elections, the Khmer Rouge may find themselves the target of an internationally supported military campaign to destroy them and none of the foreign support that kept them alive during the last 14 years is in place to protect them. It is this scenario they are trying to avoid by being part of a national reconciliation army with Sihanouk as commander in chief.

Khmer Rouge officials say that only by being part of a government coalition will it be possible to prevent a concerted effort to destroy them. "In the days to come when the country has been liberated and there is peace, this will be the genesis of many new problems both domestically and externally," Pol Pot said. "The situation will be extremely complex and both the enemy and the rest of them will go all out to eliminate Democratic Kampuchea...it will only be made impossible for them to exterminate us if we are in possession of popular strength."

Sources say that Sihanouk still believes that the Khmer Rouge must be included in a new government in order to avoid a return to conflict, and has sent messages to the radical faction since the elections to be patient.

Sihanouk is said to be waiting until he is given real influence in coming weeks to put together proposals that will modify the group's fear of being the target of a military campaign to crush it.

Despite wishful thinking on the part of the international community, the Khmer Rouge organization remains essentially intact throughout Cambodia, and they have sufficient "popular strength" to sustain them.

The have a competent administration and military in the zones they control, economic self-sufficiency, and no indication of brutality or abuses beyond that which exists in areas under the control of the other factions.

Regardless of what new government is formed in Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge have created an autonomous zone of control, which they believe can sustain them independent from a Phnom Penh-based government.

In a message to supporters in March this year obtained by the Post, Pol Pot offered some rare selfcriticisms. He acknowledged that during their disastrous years in power, "We were immature and incapable to run a whole country. We were drunk with victory and incompetent to run the country," he said.

"In 1979, we were on our bed of death. We should have died in 1979. Why didn't we die? Because even though we made a lot of mistakes, and had many enemies who hated us, we still had the capacity to draw forces.

"In every situation we have kept the control of the countryside, and that is the reason we have been able to survive. Our army was completely defeated and dismantled, but was rebuilt from the countryside. The necessity for us is the countryside, not communism," he said.

In deed large areas of the countryside remain firmly under Khmer Rouge control, including areas rich in rice, gems, and timber and safe supply lines to willing Thai commercial partners that keep the Khmer Rouge coffers healthy. The Khmer Rouge is estimated to control more than 20 percent of the countryside.

Despite the success of the election turnout, the objectives of the Paris Peace Accord to create national reconciliation and a political solution among the warring factions were obviously not achieved. The country is partitioned and the Khmer Rouge firmly in control of enough of the countryside to sustain the group.

"Between the path for survival and the path for death, we choose the path for survival," said the Khmer Rouge on 17 May, "Even though there will be many difficulties and obstacles."

As Cambodians prepare to vote in U.N.- sponsored elections in two days, they do so in a country that is effectively partitioned and, by any definition, riven by civil war.

While the Khmer Rouge has launched a military offensive designed to cripple the U.N.'s ability to conduct elections scheduled for May 23-28, the ruling State of Cambodia (SOC) has "achieved (a) position of superiority through means that are contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Paris agreements," a confidential U.N. assessment obtained by the Post states.

A further worry is that a SOC election victory would result in the formation of an opposition coalition including virtually all the major groups competing against SOC in the polls. Senior party officials from the pro-royalist FUNCINPEC and Son Sann's Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party (BLDP) acknowledge they will probably reject the poll results if the SOC won the election.

In place of a SOC regime, the smaller opposition groups are expected to join the Khmer Rouge in a call for Prince Norodom Sihanouk to set up a coalition government of national reconciliation. Sihanouk is said to be willing to accept such a role if he is offered real power to form and run a new government.

Despite the poor prospects of a stable government emerging from the polls, the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) has made it clear that it will go through with some version of the elections, albeit radically different than those envisioned under the 1991 Paris peace accords. The original conditions which UNTAC chief Yasushi Akashi and his senior officials said were necessary for elections to be held have not been met and the criteria have, in effect, been abandoned.

Bowing to reality, the U.N. has now indicated it is prepared to deem the current conditions as "reasonably free and fair and acceptable." UNTAC is apparently abandoning the requirements that the elections be held in a "neutral political environment."

As the creation of such an environment was the primary objective of the U.S. $2.8 billion Paris peace agreements, UNTAC's willingness to accept election results achieved so far beyond this criteria indicates how deeply the electoral process has been undermined, observers say.

Opposition figures, and indeed many U.N. officials, also contend that the elections may be about to install a regime that would have had little chance if the elections had been held in more neutral conditions.

According to diplomats and senior U.N. officials, UNTAC has long had evidence that a coordinated campaign of political violence and intimidation is being organized and conducted by senior Cambodian People's Party (CPP) officials. This campaign has had a significant impact on the ability of opposition parties to campaign freely.

Despite its awareness of the Phnom Penh regime's behavior, UNTAC has been unable or unwilling to seize control or adequately supervise the key functions of the SOC, as required by the peace agreement, in order to protect the electoral process.

UNTAC investigators have concluded that secret security forces controlled by SOC officials are "poised to conduct large scale arrests of opposition political party members." They also say "the SOC security apparatus has been used to try to reverse early opposition party successes with a view to assuring a CPP electoral victory."

They believe these secret security forces-which SOC maintains do not exist-are controlled from the highest levels of the CPP with the sole purpose of subverting the peace process. These covert forces include assassination squads and agents tasked with intimidating the population, attacking opposition party members and offices and preventing opposition figures from canvassing freely.

According to confidential U.N. documents, the "SOC is threatening a major confrontation with UNTAC and violence against UNTAC personnel" who attempt to interfere with the CPP's campaign against the opposition. Scores of opposition figures have been killed or wounded in dozens of attacks in recent months throughout the country.

The Khmer Rouge has long cited UNTAC's failure to take control of the country's administration and create a neutral political environment as one of the main reasons it refuses to participate in the peace process.

Senior Khmer Rouge officials told the Post that the faction has launched the offensive, "not for a final military victory, but...to create conditions for an implosion of the Phnom Penh regime and allow the eruption of popular anger."

During the past month Khmer Rouge guerrillas have begun attacking major cities. The faction briefly occupied the key provincial capital of Siem Reap in early May during a raid by 300 troops. Khmer Rouge guerrillas also bombarded Kompong Thom city with hundreds of rockets and mortars. In addition, at least 13 people were killed when a train traveling on the main line between Battambang and Phnom Penh was attacked.

A feature of Khmer Rouge attacks to date is that targets have been defined to maximize political impact. Although UNTAC casualties are mounting, the U.N. organization still appears to be a secondary target of the guerrillas - who generally concentrate their efforts on SOC positions.

Despite UNTAC's relative immunity from attack, thousands of U.N. personnel and foreign aid workers have fled unstable areas throughout the country. Many have arrived in Phnom Penh, while others have taken refuge in the more secure provincial capitals. In addition, numerous diplomats and other foreigners have sent their families out of Cambodia. Those who remain are often restricted to their compounds and have stopped traveling on Khmer Rouge-controlled roads.

An attack by the Khmer Rouge on a U.N. convoy in the northeast in which a Japanese police officer was killed led many Japanese police throughout the country to leave their posts despite being ordered to remain by their UNTAC commanders.

The Khmer Rouge attacks, and the withdrawal of UNTAC officials from dangerous areas, has reduced the number of rural areas in which voting is likely to take place. But while the U.N. has abandoned 300 polling stations because of Khmer Rouge-instigated instability, UNTAC officials say that the remaining 1,500 will be sufficient. "Every district except one in Cambodia will be covered," UNTAC spokesman Eric Falt said on May 18. "Every Cambodian who wants to vote will be able to go to a polling place within 15 kilometers of any village in the country."

The Khmer Rouge offensive is unlikely to affect voting in main provincial capitals, which are estimated to include more than 50 percent of the electorate, but the result of the poll could be affected by a shift in the balance between rural and urban voters. City dwellers are believed to be somewhat more sympathetic to opposition candidates and liberal parties such as FUNCINPEC. This is bad news for the ruling SOC regime, whose candidates have been expected to perform strongly in country areas.

While the U.N. insists that voting will go ahead, fighting could intensify. Senior UNTAC officials and Khmer Rouge sources confirm the guerrillas are rearming demobilized fighters, upgrading their militia to regular forces and recruiting new soldiers.

The Khmer Rouge has been moving stockpiled weapons to its various fronts, and has deployed ammunition and troops throughout the country. Areas where UNTAC officials have been bracing for new attacks include the central province of Kompong Cham and in the key northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey. Both Kompong Thom city and Siem Reap continue to be under great pressure. Observers believe the Khmer Rouge is capable of seizing and holding either city for a short period if they were prepared to take heavy casualties.

While fighting in the last month threatens to distort the election process, it has also created new cracks in old coalitions. Khmer Rouge guerrillas were apparently involved in early May when a battalion of Chinese army engineers in Kompong Thom were pinned down by a mortar, rocket and infantry attack on the city. The raid, which saw the Chinese troops return fire, drew a stern response from Beijing.

In Banteay Meanchey, the KR has seized effective military control from its two former non-communist allies, Son Sann's BLDP and Prince Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC. Control of this area would allow the Khmer Rouge to dominate a virtually uninterrupted swath of Cambodia from the Gulf of Thailand northwards through parts of Kompong Thom to the Mekong River.

The prospect of a resurgent Khmer Rouge, securely anchored by a string of jungle bases, has added credibility to SOC's appeals for increased international support on the assumption that it wins the elections.

The key factor now for Phnom Penh is how long such recognition would take to be translated into economic and military aid. Without such immediate support, a SOC-dominated government may not have the strength to survive its opposition.

Ironically, SOC's survival prospects could be improved by the international community's growing weariness of the Cambodian conflict. Many foreign governments now seem prepared to strengthen any government that can impose a semblance of stability on the country-regardless of whether this is done with the benefit of free and fair elections as defined by the Paris agreements.

The confusion in recent weeks surrounding Prince Sihanouk's aborted attempt to form a coalition government has exacerbated sensitive differences between the key foreign powers involved in the peace agreement over how to proceed in coming weeks. The Post has learned that Japan and France both met secretly with Sihanouk in Peking in May to propose that he create an interim government immediately after elections. Sihanouk was said to reject the proposal then, but his latest move on June 4 had the support of the two countries. Australia, the United States, China, and Britain are said to have balked at supporting Sihanouk's lightening move because of worries that it would become a permanent arrangement and that it did not reflect the FUNCINPEC victory.

Nevertheless the diplomatic community appears unanimous in their readiness to support some sort of Sihanouk-led government in the next weeks, after the final results of the elections are formalized and given the full official weight of support by the United Nations. It is believed the State of Cambodia, at that time, will have no choice but to back down in it's objections. The only other alternative -a coup-would have virtually no chance of surviving more than a matter of weeks, analysts agree.

The period between now and the end of August, where there remains a vacuum of real authority, and a lame duck administration with control of security and armed forces, has diplomats and UNTAC leaders in agreement that Sihanouk must be given real authority. The debate is over how to arrange it to ensure that an interim authority doesn't become permanent, reflects the popular mandate expressed in the elections, and doesn't pre-empt the formation of a new constitution and government as outlined in the Paris agreements.

Diplomats acknowledge that there is a split over what kind of powers such an interim authority should have. Japan and France in particular, with the support of Russia, have long favored giving Sihanouk strong executive powers as a means to pre-empt the long-simmering threat of a collapse of the Paris agreements. It was France who promulgated the idea of initiating early presidential elections in order to transfer real power to Sihanouk-even though the Paris agreement made no mention of such a proposal. And some Perm Five diplomats say that the three countries are prepared to turn a blind eye to allowing an interim government to indeed be permanent.

In a confidential U.S. non-paper obtained by the Post and distributed on June 3-the day before Sihanouk's announcement of the short-lived national reconciliation government-the United States set its official policy clearly. "The U.S. is concerned about recent discussions among the Cambodian parties concerning the immediate formation of an interim coalition government in Cambodia may lead to a violation of the Paris accords and the spirit of the successful election....We thus want to underscore the importance of ensuring that any attempts to forge a coalition among the parties which participated in the elections to create a new government adhere strictly to the process laid down by the Paris Accords. In particular the constituent assembly must be permitted to carry out fully its responsibility to draft a new constitution and forming the new government in Cambodia"

While saying the U.S. would support "political leaders to establish the broadest possible coalition among parties that took part in the election...we must make it clear that this should not in any way pre-empt the constitutional assembly's promulgation of the new constitution which would detail the structure of the new government to be formed.

"To do so would undermine the entire electoral process and the transition to democracy begun so successfully with last week's election. It would break faith with the Cambodian people who turned out in such impressive numbers to express their desire to decide their own political future. We are therefore opposed to the establishment of any interim government. We should follow the procedures laid out in the Paris agreements,"the statement said.

The U.S. position which reached Sihanouk within hours of his formation of the new government, outraged the prince, who remains deeply suspicious of the United States who he blames for his ouster from power 23 years ago. In a nationwide radio address on June 8, he said he had abandoned the idea of his government largely because of the U.S. opposition.

A senior Perm Five diplomat in Phnom Penh confirmed that Japan, France and Russia are pitted against Britain, Australia, the United States and China over the question of the terms of the interim authority. While opposed to an interim government, they are all in agreement for the need for an "interim arrangement."

"As long as it is interim, and does not interfere or curtail the activities of the constituent assembly to draft a constitution and form a new government, we are all in agreement," said the diplomat. "We need an interim arrangement to increase chances of stability during this transition period," he said.

Another diplomat said that Sihanouk's short-lived June 4 government was "blackmail against UNTAC. SOC was negotiating for interim power, this was permanent.'' But France and Japan are said to be focused on the broader issue of maintaining stability, peace and promoting a workable power sharing system that could achieve national stability even if it does not reflect the results of the election or fall within the terms of the Paris agreement.

"It is the old debate-peace or democracy? Some countries think the situation is serious enough that one will sacrifice the other and Sihanouk must be given real power now, even if it violates the terms of the Paris Accords," said the diplomat. Both France and Japan have long shown a willingness to support a Sihanouk-led government largely composed of the administration of the State of Cambodia, even to replace constituent assembly elections, according to diplomats.

Of particular focus is the status of the armed forces during this period. The Post has learned that UNTAC will begin taking over the responsibility of paying the civil service, police, and armed forces of the SOC, to attempt to mollify those that are afraid that a transition of power will leave them unemployed and without means to support themselves and their families.

It is hoped that Sihanouk will be given soon the formal role of commander in chief of the armed forces as a step towards creating an apolitical national army that is no longer allied to only one political faction.

In the meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge are remaining quiet, and have reiterated their support-for their own reasons-of a Sihanouk led government that would allow them some seat at the table of power." The objective of the Paris agreement was not elections," a senior Khmer Rouge official told the Post on June 4. ''It is only a means to achieve national reconciliation, territorial integrity, and the withdrawal of foreign forces. We cannot solve the problem of Cambodia without national reconciliation."

He said the Khmer Rouge support Sihanouk intervening but only if the arrangement sufficiently strips SOC of control over key functions of power, particularly the armed forces. He said the Khmer Rouge were happy with the election results, and the faction, in a private meeting between Khieu Samphan and Ranariddh on June 3 in Bangkok, has offered full support to Ranariddh. "Unfortunately the winner has no armed forces, and the loser has the army," the senior Khmer Rouge official said.

September 19, 2011

A fter having read Nate Thayer's reports for several years now, I suppose I should not have been as surprised and outraged as I was on reading his latest pieces "Army blank check undermines budget" printed as the lead story in the Post dated March 11-24.

The notion that the fight against the Khmer Rouge would undermine Cambodia's budget and jeopardize aid is breathtaking. May we ask what humanitarian projects the budget and aid would be devoted to if the Khmer Rouge were able to regain power in Cambodia?

Thayer goes on to blame the victim for the "failure by the government to win new international military assistance". Why not speak of the failure of the international community to support the new government of Cambodia? Why not criticize the Thai government for its continuing sanctuaries and trade with the KR, and China and the Western powers for supplying the arms that are today being employed by the KR? Thayer's own companion story shows a German anti-tank missile supplied through Singapore in 1989 being used against government troops.

The same accusation is put by "KR Ambassador" In Sopheap in an interview by Thayer published on the following page: "There is no money to increase the salary of teachers, they say themselves that 20 percent of the people have no housing, but they spend money on fighting". This must taken some gall to report straight-faced considering the KR's record on education and housing, leaving aside civil servants' salaries!

Friday, 29 January 1993

Phnom Penh Post

Letters to the Editor

No More Creampuff Journalism

I was spending some vacation time in Phnom Penh when I picked up your paper and read the "interview" with Khieu Samphan. What's going on? This guy is a mass murderer and is single-handedly blocking a U.S. $2 billion international peace effort. Yet your "reporter" Nate Thayer treats Samphan like he was some kind of elder statesman, asking him what he thinks of the current political situation. Why didn't he ask him what it feels like to kill 1,000,000 Cambodians? I've read PR handouts that hit harder than this piece of marshmallow.

Do your readers a favor-next time you interview the Khmer Rouge, send a real professional reporter-not a cream puff like this Thayer guy.

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the Editor

Friday, 29 January 1993

Editor's Response

Schuler has a point. Thayer faxed the raw transcript of the text of Khieu Samphan interview from Bangkok without his questions. While the text accurately reflected the content of the interview, it did not accurately reflect the questions posed. The interview should have been presented under topical categories rather than as a question and answer. We regret the editing error.

Thayer responds: "I've been called a puppet lackey, an intelligence operative, a right wing jerk, a communist sympathizer, and a hopeless drunk, but I have never been called a creampuff and I resent it."

Phnom Penh Post

letters to the editor

Gentle Journalism

Friday, 09 April 1993

I feeling so sorry for your reporter Kate Thayer called Gream Puff and Light Weight Werp in letters. So unfair! I read her interview with Mr. Khieu Samphan so interesting. Mr. Khieu Samphan of course is very bad man hates Vietnam people but reporter did no thing wrong. She just write down everything what she told very obedient and polite and not ask rude questions of important man her superior. Why call Gream Puff and Eroll Fling? My friends and I in the Ho Chi Minh Ladies Sewing Circle say, carry on Kate! Keep writing in your own gentle and lady like way!

NORTH OF HIGHWAY SIX, Cambodia. From a trench in abandoned ricefields in Kompong Thom province, young conscripts of Phnom Penh's army peered wide eyed from their foxholes as two journalists and a score of heavily armed guerrillas emerged from enemy controlled jungles and approached them.

Popping up from camouflaged foxholes, they grabbed automatic rifles, and curiously approached the group. The soldiers-from rival factions-greeted each other warily.

For the guerrilla fighters, it was the first time they had spoken to the enemy in more than 13 years of war, although some knew each other by reputation.

A soldier was dispatched to seek a superior's approval for a request for the journalists to pass into Phnom Penh territory. While waiting, the young men exchanged cigarettes and asked about each other. It turned out a guerrilla and his government counterpart came from the same village in the far away province of Prey Veng.

"You see what the war has done to us," said Meas, a guerrilla fighter, pointing to the Phnom Penh soldier. "We could be related and we wouldn't know it."

Meas had fled Cambodia's turmoil to the Thai border more than a decade before, eventually joining the guerrilla faction led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The Phnom Penh soldier had been drafted into the army some three years earlier and sent to the jungle.

Another Phnom Penh soldier said that he had recently found out that his brother, who had been missing since the Vietnamese invasion in l979, was a soldier with the guerrillas.

"Do you know my brother and if he is well?" he asked the guerrilla.

Another young fighter said, "Now in Cambodia, a whole generation must ask our elders if we are related, because we don't even know who we are since the war split us apart."

"In Cambodia, all our leaders are getting rich while we suffer," another soldier added. Everyone nodded in agreement. It was a theme we heard everywhere.

A photographer from Impact Visuals photo agency and I had rented a Soviet jeep in Phnom Penh and set off alone on a 15-day journey that would take us through nine provinces, across dozens of minefields and frontlines to territory under the control of all four Cambodian factions.

Many Cambodians living under the control of, or working for each of the four factions expressed deep cynicism and resentment towards their leaders whom they blame for incompetence, corruption, and continuing a conflict largely for personal gain. Soldiers from all four factions said they had not been paid for months, and worried about what would happen to them in a post-war Cambodia.

No commanding officer could be found that day, and after some debate, we were allowed to pass, for the 100 kilometer trip back to Kompong Thom city.

Soon after our arrival, two Phnom Penh interior ministry police officials arrived at our guesthouse. Initially, they were not happy.

"My job is to protect the party," the young intelligence officer announced rather cheerfully. "You have no permission to be here and I have to ask you some questions."

After an hour of interrogation, the intelligence officer asked whether we could talk as friends. "I hear that maybe I will not have a job after cantonment and demobilization," he said, "Is journalism a good job? How is the pay? I think we have similar jobs. We both have to ask a lot of questions and find out what is going on."

In Banteay Meanchey province, large tracts of land have been made uninhabitable by mines planted during heavy fighting for control of the area.

Soldiers guided us through oxcart paths snaking through mined ricefields, across frontlines, delivering us to forward checkpoints of their erstwhile enemies.

During more than a score of such transfers, we would request a couple of soldiers from a forward position to accompany us for security until we reached another faction's base.

There was never a shortage of volunteers, most eager for a break from the boredom of isolated outposts. Because of the abundance of mines and bandits, it was good to have guides with weapons who were familiar with the terrain.

Killings and robberies were daily events in the area where rogue bands of former soldiers from each of the four factions routinely ambush anyone with valuables.

The young fighters in the guerrilla zones would pepper us with questions: Are there a lot of Vietnamese in Phnom Penh? Are there jobs for people like me? Do you think we will be safe and welcomed back now that the war is over?

It was not unusual for our Soviet jeep, which we rented from an army officer in Phnom Penh, to be filled with a half dozen fully armed uniformed soldiers from different factions. We would discuss politics but mostly their fears for the future and being able to provide for their families after years of living in the jungle.

In scrubland north of the district capital of Banteay Meanchey, we drove to isolated villages under the control of the Khmer Rouge, where villagers and Khmer Rouge cadre spoke about their hopes for the future.

"We must rid the country from the Vietnamese first before the war can stop," said one Khmer Rouge cadre. "But we all want peace. Everyone has suffered enough."

"I don't know why so many people died when we were in power," said one young Khmer Rouge fighter, who seemed genuinely perplexed by the issue.

A Khmer Rouge medic we met at a Khmer Rouge division headquarters near the Dongrek mountain escarpment asked if we could give him a ride south so he could pick up some medical supplies.

"You are American," he said cheerfully. "Do you know my sister? She lives in New York." He said that he had spent three years in China training as a medic, and was proud of his skills.

"I can do any kind of operation, but mostly amputations," he said.

I asked him how many amputations he had performed. "Oh, too many to count," he said, "At least 200."

In the bustling market town of Tmar Pouk, under control of the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, government soldiers in uniform mingled easily with their former enemies.

"We don't have any problems with each other," one said. "We are just regular soldiers. It's our leaders who can't get along."

One KPNLF soldier asked whether he could accompany us back to Phnom Penh controlled town of Sisophon. He could not cross the frontlines by himself, but he said with foreigners he had a chance. He wanted to catch a bus from Sisophon to visit his mother near Siem Reap, whom he hadn't seen in ten years.

"I left home to join the KPNLF when I was 12," he said. Quickly removing his jungle fatigues and switching to civilian clothes, he got in the back of the jeep, sharing the seat with an elderly woman who was returning to her government-controlled village after visiting her son, a KPNLF officer.

A guerrilla fighter guided us to an oxcart path. "Just drive along the tracks of the oxcart," he said, "Don't leave the path. Both sides are mined."

Further down Highway 69, where hundreds died in recent years' fighting for control, rogue soldiers piled mortars on the road in a crude roadblock. Soldiers with grenades in one hand and assault rifles in the other, stopped the rare vehicle demanding money.

"They don't get paid enough to eat," said the soldier in the back, after we passed.

"I'm glad I'm with you," the mother said, "They would have taken everything I had if I was alone."

We left the two passengers in Sisophon. "I don't even know if my mother is still alive," the soldier said.

Khmer Rouge Ambassador In So-pheap, the faction's current representative in Phnom Penh, gave an interview to the Post on 8 March. He articulated the KR position on these issues to Nate Thayer: Peace talks: They [the government] have no support from the people. They are very weak.

Their only resource is military means. All their stock is in military means. Their aim is to destroy the five point peace plan. They do not want peace. The five point peace plan means the unity of all the forces in the government. That means Cambodia will be run by the four parties and a truly national government....only national reconciliation on the basis of the five point peace plan can solve the problem. Because they cannot win and we cannot win because the western countries will never let the DK win the war like in 1975, but the Vietnamese and the two headed government cannot win either.

Western powers: Their [government] soldiers are fighting against their will. This war is financed by western powers. What we call the "entente". They give money. When you give money and the money goes to fighting, that is supporting the war. The so-called humanitarian assistance like demining - all this is for fighting against Anlong Veng and elsewhere. About medical assistance, it is also for the fighting. The blood banks are used for the fighting....they cannot win militarily or politically so, one day when the "entente" sees there is no way out, they will accept the five point plan. We hope they will realize this sooner rather than later...who can put pressure on Funcinpec but the western powers? Only the CPP wants the fighting. The majority of Funcinpec do not want it. So why do they fight? Because there is pressure form the "entente". In the "entente" we cite three countries - the United States, France, and Australia.

Funcinpec: It is not to late for HRH Prince Ranariddh and Funcinpec to come to the five point peace plan. If they support it our people will support them. But if they continue this way our nation and people will not have peace and also they will have no political future. If Ranariddh chooses to follow the CPP path of fighting he will not be very popular. Peace is always popular.

Foreign Aid to Cambodia: The donor countries can do very very good things for our people, if they use their aid to put the pressure on the two-headed government to make peace. But to help a government you should make peace. But if they just give money, what percentage of that money do they use to buy armaments to fight? There is no money to increase the salary of teachers, they say themselves that 20 percent of the people have no housing, but they spend money on fighting.

September 18, 2011

From the blog of Andrew Sherry, former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, and AFP and USA Today correspondent, now a mucky muck with the Washington DC think tank Center for American Progress

Nate Thayer vs. Pol Pot

As much as I loved reporting, the highlight of my years at the Far Eastern Economic Review was editing Nate Thayer, one of the greatest investigative reporters of his generation. Nate broke the story in 1997 that Cambodia's ex-dictator, Pol Pot, was still alive and had been purged from the Khmer Rouge, the movement responsible for the deaths of some 2 million Cambodians when it held power from 1975-1979. He followed up a few months later with the first interview with Pol Pot in 18 years, shedding light on how utopian leftism absorbed in university classrooms and cafes in Paris translated to genocide back in Cambodia. Pol Pot died after he heard Nate's report, picked up by the Khmer service of VOA, that the Khmer Rouge planned to turn him over to international authorities for trial.

In an era of instant communication, when scoops are matched in hours and sometimes minutes, the Pol Pot stories went unmatched for months. That's because Nate had spent years developing contacts within the Khmer Rouge, Thai intelligence and elsewhere to gain this access, gaining an opening when the movement turned in upon itself. By no means a Khmer Rouge apologist, he presented a straight, unvarnished picture of the past and present, and confronted Pol Pot with the evidence that he was a mass murderer. With journalism dominated by repackaged content, reporters spoon-feed by anonymous sources with agendas, and few publications besides The New Yorker and The Atlantic willing to back long investigations, these stories stand as journalistic monuments I feel privileged to have helped build.

With the Pol Pot exclusives, Nate came exhausted out of the jungle, disgorged his notes, pictures and video, and we shared the writing. It was great teamwork, and it would not have been possible without the support of another legendary journalist, then Review editor Nayan Chanda. The stories are not available online, because Nate was a freelancer on retainer with the Review, and he owns the copyright. But with his permission, I'll scan and post them on this site eventually, as they represent and important contribution to the historical record on Southeast Asia and on genocide. I also hope to see Nate complete his book about that era -- the chapters I have read are very strong.

Nate and I actually first met when we were competing reporters in Cambodia in 1991, him for AP and me for AFP. Then after we both joined the Review, I helped him pull together a package of stories that exposed how Cambodia was failing as a state, with a major Sino-Thai drug dealer paying a third of the defense budget and using the apparatus of state to grow his business -- much the way Al Qeda took over Afghanistan a few years later. We remain close friends.

December 29, 2009

People with cars often end up lugging stuff around for other folk. Take, for example, my former colleague Nate Thayer, whose odder-than-usual bit of luggage was the corpse of one of history's greatest mass murderers.

Nate, a journalist, had trekked through the jungles of Cambodia to get one of the scoops of the 20th century: an interview with Pol Pot, a dictator responsible for up to 2.5 million murders.

Pol Pot died shortly afterward. (Yeah, meeting reporters REALLY ups your stress level). Nate poked him to make sure he was dead, and then was asked to help transport the body in a pickup truck.

"It felt kind of weird to be driving along with a dead historical figure," he told us back at the office.

I thought about throwing into the conversation an anecdote about a rude hitchhiker I once picked up, but I changed my mind. Sometimes you meet someone whose stories are so amazing they make normal conversational exchanges impossible. Nate was one of those guys, and there were others in the office, too.

Those memories come from the time I worked at the Far Eastern Economic Review, or FEER.

It's in the news because the American owner, Dow Jones, announced it will cease publication after this month's issue, abandoning a name that has appeared on newsstands for 63 years.

In 2002, FEER predicted that a killer microbe would appear in southern China, cross to Hong Kong, and then cause global panic. A few months later, the killer microbe SARS appeared in southern China, crossed the border to Hong Kong, and then caused global panic. The magazine took out an ad in newspapers saying, "Sometimes we wish we got it wrong."

My father was writing an article for FEER when I was conceived - he was a dedicated multi-tasker - so it was inevitable I would join the staff. But while other reporters got mega- scoops, my job was to document the small, quirky tales that defined life in Asia-Pacific, on a page called Travellers' Tales.

I'll never forget the Filipino woman who claimed to have given birth to a fish. Or the couple in Tianjin, China, who offered a fortune to any man who would marry their household ghost. Or the Australian motorist who tried to escape driving penalties by claiming that his wife was driving, despite the fact that she had been dead for four years. Or Britz, a dog picked up from a New Zealand town by a tornado, and put down so far away it took him 10 hours to walk home. Or the Japanese employee who was so ashamed of having missed a meeting that he had himself kidnapped to provide a worthy enough excuse.

However, the quality of FEER's reporting fell dramatically in 2004, possibly related to the fact that the owner sacked all the reporters. From then on, the magazine's death became inevitable.

Mass murderers hiding in the jungles are reading this and saying, "Yippee, guys. We're safe!"

Asia's Kouprey May Not Be New Species

BANGKOK, Thailand — Among the rarest mammals in Southeast Asia, the kouprey's discovery almost 70 years ago in the jungles of Cambodia stunned the scientific community and led to a decades-long campaign to save it from extinction.

But what if this elusive forest ox wasn't a natural species after all?

That is the controversial premise raised by Northwestern University biologist Gary Galbreath and his colleagues F.H. Weiler and J.C. Mordacq in a paper published in April in the Journal of Zoology.

Galbreath and his team compared the DNA from two kouprey skulls _ something previously impossible because of technological limitations _ with that of the Cambodian banteng and found they were similar.

They concluded that the kouprey, which may well be extinct, most likely originated as a hybrid bred from domestic banteng and zebu cattle in Cambodia a century ago and only later became wild, rather than arising in the wild as a natural species.

"The kouprey has acquired a rather romantic, exotic reputation,"said Galbreath, associate director of Northwestern's Program in Biological Sciences in Evanston, Ill."Some people would understandably be sad to see it dethroned as a species."

Asia's Kouprey May Not Be New Species

Saturday, October 21, 2006

By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand — Among the rarest mammals in Southeast Asia, the kouprey's discovery almost 70 years ago in the jungles of Cambodia stunned the scientific community and led to a decades-long campaign to save it from extinction.

But what if this elusive forest ox wasn't a natural species after all?

That is the controversial premise raised by Northwestern University biologist Gary Galbreath and his colleagues F.H. Weiler and J.C. Mordacq in a paper published in April in the Journal of Zoology.

Galbreath and his team compared the DNA from two kouprey skulls _ something previously impossible because of technological limitations _ with that of the Cambodian banteng and found they were similar.

They concluded that the kouprey, which may well be extinct, most likely originated as a hybrid bred from domestic banteng and zebu cattle in Cambodia a century ago and only later became wild, rather than arising in the wild as a natural species.

"The kouprey has acquired a rather romantic, exotic reputation,"said Galbreath, associate director of Northwestern's Program in Biological Sciences in Evanston, Ill."Some people would understandably be sad to see it dethroned as a species."

The paper stirred up wild cattle specialists who have spent decades trying to save the kouprey. They say the conclusionwas hasty and based on insufficient data.

The kouprey, a nomadic ox with dramatic curved horns that resembles a water buffalo, was first identified in 1937 as a new species. It was discovered in the forests of Cambodia, but scientists believe its range at one time stretched into parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Conservationists ever since have led a frustrating campaign to save the kouprey.

American zoologist Charles Wharton failed in the 1960s to capture the beasts _ two died and three escaped _ as part of a project to raise them in captivity in Texas. A proposal by three Asian governments in the 1980s to export frozen kouprey embryos to U.S. zoos never advanced because no one could find any of the animals.

The last confirmed sighting by a Western scientist was in the 1960s. Civil wars in Cambodia during the 1970s and 1980s kept conservationists out of the country, and more recent searches failed.

Among the most infamous searches was one in 1993 led by American journalist Nate Thayer, who took an elephant caravan that included former Khmer Rouge guerrillas, an American mercenary and the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

They spent a fruitless two weeks looking for the ox, which grows to a height of about 6 1/2 feet and weight of 1,300 to 2,000 pounds.

"We never found the kouprey, but did come across Khmer Rouge soldiers who spotted us and fled, presumably to inform their commandeers of a group of white guys heavily armed in the area,"Thayer said in an e-mail message.

Weiler, who took part in the DNA study with Galbreath, also led several unsuccessful expeditions in Cambodia from 1997 until last year. He hired elephant and tiger trackers and interviewed nearly 300 people to get leads. Despite vivid stories of the beast in the jungle, he never saw one.

"I came to the conclusion that the kouprey is extinct,"Weiler said."I've closed the book. It's possible three or four will pop up somewhere. But it's highly unlikely."

Not everyone agrees. The World Conservation Union still designates the kouprey as critically endangered and estimates there are less than 200 left in remote parts of Indochina.

"I think it's a little too early to give up hope. It is hard to prove something is extinct,"said Simon Hedges, a wild cattle expert."When you consider that new species are still being discovered in Indochina, I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to believe there might be pockets of species such as the kouprey living in the same area."

More controversial is the suggestion by Galbreath and his team that the kouprey should never have been listed as a species in the first place, theorizing it was likely bred as a domestic hybrid"to produce a strong animal that survives in difficult circumstances."

Calling it the most likely explanation based on the DNA testing, the animal's limited geographic range and its physical similarities to domestic cattle, Galbreath said that"it is surely desirable not to waste time and money trying to locate or conserve a domestic breed gone wild."

"The limited funds available should be used to protect wild species,"he said.

But Galbreath has done little to change long-standing opinions among kouprey enthusiasts.

Alexandre Hassanin, a French scientist who along with Anne Ropiquet announced in 2004 that they had sequenced the kouprey DNA to show it was a natural species, said he disagrees with the paper.

The Cambodia government, which in the 1960s designated the kouprey as its national animal, has no plans to change that status.

"In my view, those researchers are not so sure either. If it was a hybrid, when did that happen?"said Yim Voeuntharn, Cambodia's deputy minister of agriculture."There is no specific evidence."

Hedges, the wild cattle expert, calls Galbreath's findings"premature"and"counterproductive,"saying it is wrong to discount the kouprey as a species based on such a small sample of DNA.

"If their analysis shows anything, it is that there are some hybrid banteng with kouprey ancestry,"he said."They don't show anything beyond that. They are arguing on very little information that the kouprey is a feral relic."

Galbreath agrees more DNA testing is needed and plans to take samples from banteng in other parts of Southeast Asia.

"For half a century, biologists have been complacent about this,"he said."Everyone fell in love with the idea that the kouprey was a natural species."

October 01, 2009

Thursday, 01 October 2009

Bad news for journalism is great news for killers in the jungle

PEOPLE WITH CARS often end up lugging stuff around for other folk. Take, for example, my former colleague Nate Thayer, whose odder-than-usual bit of luggage was the corpse of one of history’s greatest mass murderers.

Nate, a reporter, had trekked through the jungles of Cambodia to get one of the scoops of the century: he had interviewed Pol Pot, a dictator responsible for more than a million murders.

The mass killer died shortly afterward. (Yeah, meeting journalists REALLY ups your stress level.) Nate poked him to make sure he was dead, and then was asked to help transport the body in a pickup truck. “It felt kind of weird to be driving along with a dead historical figure,” he told us when he got back to the office.

I thought about throwing into the conversation an anecdote about an impolite hitchhiker I once picked up, but I changed my mind. Sometimes you meet someone whose stories are so amazing that they make normal conversational exchanges impossible. Nate was one of those guys—and there were others in the office, too.

Those memories come from the time I worked at the Far Eastern Economic Review, also known as FEER. It's in the news today because the owner, Dow Jones, has revealed that it is going to stop printing it, abandoning a name which has appeared on newsstands for 63 years.

FEER produced lots of scoops. In 1998, Malaysian leader Mohamed Mahathir complained about the magazine’s allegation that there was a rift between him and his deputy Anwar Ibrahim. Not true at all, he said, before throwing Anwar in jail.

In 2002, FEER predicted that a killer microbe would appear in southern China, cross to Hong Kong, and then cause global panic. A few months later, the killer microbe SARS appeared in southern China, crossed the border to Hong Kong, and then caused global panic. The then editor L. Gordon Crovitz took out an ad in newspapers saying, “Sometimes we wish we got it wrong.”

My father was writing an article for FEER when I was conceived so it was inevitable that I would join the staff.

But while other reporters got mega-scoops, my job was to document the small, quirky tales that defined life in Asia-Pacific on a page called Travellers’ Tales.

I’ll never forget the Filipino woman who claimed to have given birth to a fish.

Or the couple in Tianjin, China who offered a fortune to any man who would marry their household ghost.

Or the Australian motorist who tried to escape driving penalties by claiming that his wife was driving, despite the fact that she had been dead for four years.

Or Britz, a dog picked up from a New Zealand town by a tornado and put down so far away it took him ten hours to walk home.

Or the Japanese salary-man who was so ashamed of having missed a meeting that he had himself kidnapped to provide a worthy enough excuse.

Or the thousands of funny pictures (see top of this column and below) we were sent.

* However, the quality of FEER’s reporting fell dramatically in 2004, possibly related to the fact that the owner sacked all the reporters, including me.

From then on, the magazine’s death became inevitable.

Mass murderers hiding in the jungles are reading this and saying, “Yippee, guys. We’re safe!”

April 22, 2009

'Christ brought you to meet me'

IOLNEWS

April 22 2009 at 11:16am

Phnom Penh - The former Khmer Rouge prison chief told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Wednesday he believed Jesus Christ had guided journalists to track him down a decade ago when he was a fugitive.

Duch, a born-again Christian, apologised in March at the start of his trial, accepting blame for overseeing the extermination of 15 000 people who passed through the regime's Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21.

As he sat in the dock on Tuesday wearing a white polo shirt, he recounted how journalists Nic Dunlop and Nate Thayer interviewed him at a hotel in a western Cambodian town in 1999.

"I told Nic Dunlop, 'Christ brought you to meet me.' Nic Dunlop quoted those words and those are the words I spoke to him," Duch said.

"I said, 'Before I used to serve human beings, but now I serve God.'"

Nic Dunlop found Duch hiding in a western Cambodian town in 1999 and later wrote a biography of the former prison chief.

Duch - whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav - told the court he confessed his role in the 1975 to 1979 regime after hearing Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot state that Tuol Sleng prison never existed.

"I could not bear what Pol Pot said, so I had to show my face," Duch said.

"For S-21, I was the chairperson of that office. The crimes committed at S-21 were under my responsibility," he added.

Although Duch says he oversaw the brutal prison, he has maintained he never personally executed anyone and has only ever admitted to abusing two people.

The former mathematics teacher has also denied prosecutors' claims that he played a central role in the Khmer Rouge's iron-fisted rule.

He faces life in jail at the court, which does not have the power to impose the death penalty.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, and many believe the UN-sponsored tribunal is the last chance to find justice for victims of the regime, which killed up to two million people. - Sapa-AFP

July 22, 2006

Pol Pot's enforcer linked to 1.7m deaths

Ta Mok: Ta Mok, the nom de guerre of a Khmer Rouge leader who played a key role in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s, died yesterday in a Phnom Penh military hospital, where he awaited trial on genocide charges.

Historians of Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist 1975-1979 rule say he oversaw massive and bloody purges of party cadres and ordinary people, a role which later earned him the nickname "The Butcher".

To the last, however, the one-legged 80-year-old protested his innocence, saying he was merely a simple soldier maligned by the international media.

Over the past few years, Ta Mok's lawyer said his client was in declining health after suffering a heart attack. A frail, white- haired man, Ta Mok was believed to be 80. He maintained to the end that he bore no responsibility for Cambodia's "killing fields" and that other Khmer Rouge commanders had been the architects and perpetrators of the genocide.

But for years Ta Mok was a feared name in Cambodia. As the second in command of the Khmer Rouge, he and his followers were linked to the elimination of entire villages, forced labour camps, mass executions and torture chambers. The prime minister, Hun Sen, referred to him as the "Hitler of Cambodia".

Although little is known about his personal life, Ta Mok, whose real name was Chhit Choen, was born into a peasant family in Cambodia's southern province of Takeo. Like many poor young Cambodians in the 1930s, he became a Buddhist monk because pagodas offered food and shelter.

He left the monkhood at 16 and in the 1940s joined the resistance movement against the French colonialists.

Unlike other senior Khmer Rouge leaders such as Pol Pot, Ta Mok never studied abroad. His only ideology was Cambodian nationalism, and he vaguely grasped the concept of communism, which was the foundation of the Khmer Rouge's ultra-Maoist revolution.

"When I joined the Communist Party of Cambodia," he told Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review in a 1997 interview, "I did not know what communism was. They told me the party was a patriotic one. That is why I joined the party."

He also told Thayer his motivation for becoming a guerrilla was to secure a better life for Cambodian peasants and to free the country from Vietnamese domination. The Khmer Rouge came to power in April 1975 after defeating the US-backed government of Lon Nol.

He established himself as Pol Pot's enforcer, dispatching cadres to parts of the country deemed insufficiently committed to the "Year Zero" revolution or too soft on traditional enemy Vietnam.

He was also the leader most strongly against reintroducing money, outlawed in the early days of power to reinforce the purity of the agrarian revolution.

During the 44 months it ruled Cambodia - until deposed in 1979 by invading Vietnamese troops - the Khmer Rouge killed one of every six Cambodians in the name of creating a pure agrarian society free of foreign influence.

Ta Mok fled into the jungles after Vietnam's invasion to carry on the guerrilla war, first against Vietnam, then against the new Cambodian government. He conducted ruthless purges of the Khmer Rouge's suspected enemies and set up a fiefdom in the northern town of Anlong Veng.

UN peacekeepers in 1993 blamed him for the slaughter of ethnic Vietnamese, including many women and babies, in a fishing village on the Great Lake.

In 1997, Ta Mok took control of the Khmer Rouge from Pol Pot in a bloody purge. But by then, the movement was dying. Defectors by the hundreds had surrendered their weapons in exchange for a government offer of amnesty. Pol Pot died in the northern jungles in April 1998.

Ta Mok was arrested in March 1999 crossing into northern Cambodia from Thailand and charged with genocide under a law banning the Khmer Rouge.

March 15, 2005

New York Sun

Legendary Reporter Gets His Due

Among a certain stratum of journalistic cognoscenti, mutters of satisfaction are being heard at the Shorenstein Award for Journalism given to Nayan Chanda. The director of publications for the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor of Yale-Global Online is not exactly a household name, but there are those - including the editor of The New York Sun - who have been overheard to remark that Mr. Chanda is one of the dozen or so greatest reporters of his generation.

The son of a schoolteacher from Calcutta, Mr. Chanda did his graduate studies at the Sorbonne, where he met a brilliant and beautiful woman named Geetanjali Singh, who was from New Delhi and who would become his wife. Mr. Chanda went to work in 1970 for the Far Eastern Economic Review, where he covered Vietnam and wrote about the war that defined his generation with a comprehensiveness matched by few, if any, others.

It was Mr. Chanda who broke to the world the news that North Vietnamese armor had taken the presidential palace in South Vietnam. It seems that Mr. Chanda was alone in the Reuters bureau, seated with his feet on a desk and looking onto a street called Thong Nhat, or Reunification Boulevard, when he saw the nose of a tank come into view. Then he saw the body of the tank slide past, then the rear of the tank, then the antenna, and then a flag hanging off of it. Realizing that the flag was that of the communists, Mr. Chanda leapt to his feet, grabbed a camera, and dashed out the door in time to see the tank crash into the gates of the palace as a guard scrambled out of the way. Mr. Chanda raced back into the Reuters office and was tapping out a dispatch onto a live teletype that the palace had been taken when all the lines went down. But he had gotten out the scoop that hundreds of journalists had wondered who would write.

One of the things that marked Mr. Chanda's reporting on Vietnam was that he not only covered the story for years before free Vietnam fell but also stayed with it for years afterward, to bring in scoop after scoop on a second phase of the war, the one in which communists fought communists or, to put it geopolitically, the Soviet-backed regime in Vietnam battled the Red Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. It was Mr. Chanda who broke the story of the massacres of Vietnamese by Cambodian communists that triggered the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which forced the Khmer Rouge back into the jungles.

Mr. Chanda rose to become the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, owned by Dow Jones and Company. From Hong Kong in 1998, Mr. Chanda was directing a correspondent named Nate Thayer, when the intrepid, tobacco chewing American reached Mr. Chanda, via a battery-operated satellite phone from Siem Reap, Cambodia, to let the editor know how he planned to maneuver through that dangerous land on his way to find the Red-Chinese-backed mass murderer known as Pol Pot.

Mr. Chanda was concerned that Mr. Thayer would be mistaken for a combatant and get arrested, or killed. So he ordered Mr. Thayer, perfunctorily, to change his plan, only to hear, "Nayan, sorry, but my battery's going dead ..." Or something to that effect. Days later, Mr. Chanda released to the world Mr. Thayer's now-famous interview with a Pol Pot who was much reduced and only six months away from death.

One of the shrewdest operators in journalism, Mr. Chanda was once in a hotel room in Beijing when - 30 minutes before deadline - he was asked by an editor in Hong Kong to put a question to the exiled Cambodian monarch, Prince Sihanouk. Mr. Chanda did not know where the mercurial French-speaking prince was, but he had a hunch he was in North Korea. So he picked up the bedside phone in his hotel and said to the hotel operator, "Pyongyang." The next word Mr. Chanda heard was, "Pyongyang." Mr. Chanda said: "Si-hanouk." The next word he heard was, "bonjour."

Sometime before that, Mr. Chanda himself was in Pyongyang and used ordinary mail to send word to a friend of what it was like there. The date was 1981, which Mr. Chanda noted carefully on a postcard and then wrote, under it, "I haven't seen any animal farm yet but can see this country is three years ahead of everybody else."

The Shorenstein Award is given every two years and is presented jointly by the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum for Asia Pacific Studies at Stanford University and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The award honors a journalist not only for an outstanding body of work, but also for the way that work has helped Americans understand Asia. Previous winners have included Stanley Karnow, who wrote a seminal history of the Vietnam war, and Don Oberdorfer of the Washington Post, as well as Orville Schell.

An agent of the Knickerbocker caught up with Mr. Chanda at a small dinner at a club in Midtown Manhattan and learned that the Web site that Mr. Chanda edits has a rapidly growing readership and is disproving the notion that the World Wide Web is more buzz than substance. He shows no sign at all of slowing down and reports that he is currently writing a book on the history of globalization - though he promised the Knick that he would not use that word on the cover.

November 03, 2004

The Far Eastern Economic Review

By HELENE COOPERPublished: November 3, 2004

or someone who grew up dreaming about swashbuckling journalists reporting from far-flung places, there was no greater model than The Far Eastern Economic Review, a weekly founded in Shanghai in 1946 and put out by a raffish staff of adventurers.

To me, the review's reporters embodied what journalism was about. There was Bertil Lintner, the Swedish buccaneer who spent a year walking along the Chinese-Burma border during the 1980's with his wife. Their baby was born along the way, and Mr. Lintner continued to file mammoth articles that gave voice to a culture nobody would pay anyone to cover. There was John MacBeth, the New Zealander who kept reporting from East Timor to Jakarta even after his leg was amputated, battling the Indonesian strongman Suharto. There was Nayan Chanda, the Bengali from Calcutta, among the last reporters left in Saigon when North Vietnamese tanks invaded the city. Mr. Chanda was filing his article as Communist tanks were crashing through the city gates. He kept working until two Communists walked up to him and literally pulled the plug of the telex machine.

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And then there was Nate Thayer. My hero. During the 1980's and 90's, the mercurial Mr. Thayer hung out with the Cambodian resistance, dodging Khmer bullets in the jungles around Angkor Wat, fleeing Vietnamese troops across the Thai border and even at one point inadvertently running over a land mine, which exploded and destroyed his pickup truck. In 1997, he finally got the reward he had been seeking: Khmer commanders took him deep into the jungle, where he found Pol Pot.

Last week, Dow Jones, publisher of The Far Eastern Economic Review, announced it was shutting it down and laying off 80 people. The current Nov. 4 issue will be the last of its kind; while Dow Jones is keeping the brand name alive, FEER will be a monthly with essays from academics and government officials: not a Nate Thayer in the bunch.

Four years ago, on my way home from Beijing, I met the FEER reporter Murray Hiebert on the plane. He was fresh out of a Kuala Lumpur prison, where he had just spent a month for reporting about a Malaysian judge's wife who had sued an international school for kicking her son off the debate team. I was star-struck; here was one of my heroes in the flesh, still battle-scarred. Murray was bashful. "I think most journalists should go to jail for a month," he said later. "You have no idea how much you respect press freedom after that."

Adages; Marketing the news: the selling of Pol Pot.(Ted Koppel and ABC in lawsuit)

Earlier this year, Ted Koppel survived an attempt by ABC to bounce him and ``Nightline'' off the air for David Letterman's ``Late Show,'' but will he be able to defend himself against a $30 million lawsuit?

Adages has learned that Mr. Koppel and ABC are being sued for $30 million in punitive damages and unspecified compensatory damages by Nate Thayer, a freelance reporter who alleges that they stole his exclusive story and that the ``misappropriation of credit deprived Thayer of the advertising value of his name.''

Thayer broke what has been called one of the great scoops of the last century. At the heart of the lawsuit is the question of who has the right to market a scoop to the rest of the media: The outlet airing the story or the reporter who got it?

In 1997, after a decade-long search, Thayer finally tracked down Pol Pot, who was believed to be dead, deep in the jungles of northern Cambodia. It was the first time Pol Pot had been photographed and interviewed in 20 years. And it was the last. The Cambodian dictator, who was said to be responsible for the deaths of about 3 million Cambodians, died under mysterious circumstances a year after Thayer filmed him. Thayer's video footage of the interview with Pol Pot aired on ``Nightline'' on July 28, 1997.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 30, alleges that Koppel and ABC breached a contract with Thayer that allowed for limited use of the Pol Pot footage. Thayer would get credit for the images and be paid $350,000 for the story. The agreement, the suit says, was made verbally in front of witnesses, and Koppel promised that ABC lawyers would draft a final document. ``Don't worry,'' Koppel said to Thayer, according to the complaint. ``You must trust me, journalist to journalist.''

``Instead of complying with those terms,'' said Mel Weiss, partner at Milberg Weiss Berhad Hynes & Lerach, New York, which is representing Thayer, ``ABC immediately created a frame grab, used it without giving Thayer credit, fixed ABC's logo on the photo saying `ABC News exclusive,' forwarded the frame to news services, posted it on the ABC Web site, gave a transcript of the video and a 10 minute portion of it to The New York Times, and broadcast the video on monitors throughout the streets of Cambodia, which basically destroyed Thayer's commercial viability with this product.'' The suit accuses Koppel and ABC of copyright infringement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, tortious interference with business relations and fraud, among other things.

According to the complaint, Thayer never received a written contract. He claims an ABC lawyer told him the reason he couldn't get a contract that day was because the lawyer ``did not know how to type'' and he had ``no secretary.'' Thayer also claims he did not receive payment until 10 months later, when ABC sent $350,000 to defuse the controversy after Thayer refused to accept a Peabody Award that he was to share with ABC for the Pol Pot report.

Along with damages, Thayer is demanding the defendants be required to pay him ``the profits and other economic benefits realized.'' Profits would include advertising revenue ``Nightline'' got the nights it aired the footage, according to a person with knowledge of the lawsuit.

``In 1997 ABC News agreed to pay NateThayer the sizable sum of $350,000 for the rights to use his footage of former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot,'' said Jeffrey Schneider, VP, ABC News. ``Despite the fact that ABC provided prominent and repeated credit and generous remuneration for his work, Mr. Thayer initiated a five-year barrage of complaints coupled with repeated demands for more money that culminate in this filing, in what is essentially a contract dispute. We find it unfortunate that Mr. Thayer and his lawyers have attempted to attack the good name of one of America's most respected news broadcasts as well as a journalist of impeccable reputation. We look forward to the opportunity to prove in court that Thayer's claims have no merit.''

Send scoops to rlinnett@crain.com

CAPTION(S):

Swimming to Cambodia: Ted Koppel creates a news event in Phnom Penh with footage of Thayer's interview with Pol Pot. * Thayer: Through a minefield

ESCAPES: The Living Fields; Cambodia's Most Famous War Reporter Retreats to Dorchester County, Md.

"If I were writing about this area," the war correspondent says with one arm draped over the steering wheel of his pickup, "that would be my lead right there."

The war correspondent is squinting down the sunny main street of Cambridge, Md.--a rank of blank storefronts and shabby 1960s siding. Specifically, he's pointing at a digital clock that glows feebly on the side of a two-story corner law office. "That clock has been six hours slow since I got here. It's the perfect emblem for this place."

This place is Dorchester County, Md., a working Chesapeake borough less than two hours from Washington where it sometimes seems the digital age has progressed no further than a half-bright digital clock overlooking a sleepy downtown. The war reporter--who has a hard time looking at any scene without mentally crafting a paragraph about it--is Nate Thayer, a hard-eyed, trouble-hunting journalist who has infiltrated some of the bloodiest jungle strongholds in Southeast Asia. To the surprise of his family, colleagues and readers, the 40- year-old Thayer recently retreated to placid Dorchester after more than 15 years of chasing danger around the world. Last spring, he bought a capacious old farmhouse and 70 acres on Church Creek, less than a mile as the heron flies from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. He's quietly writing a book and tending the fields with his longtime sweetheart, Carol Bean, and Scoop, a scrappy mutt they rescued from the slums of Bangkok. After a long adrenaline ride through hot spots and hellholes, Thayer says he came to Dorchester for a little peace. Reluctantly.

"I was the world's most unmotivated buyer," he laughs, walking across the street to his frequent breakfast spot at the counter of Doris Mae's Restaurant. "I looked at waterfront property all over the world, Thailand, France. When I finally came over here, everyone said, 'Don't even look in Dorchester, there's nothing there,' which immediately intrigued me. The overwhelming sentiment here is not to change things. That's why I like it."

A white-haired woman at the griddle looks up as Thayer enters. He's an imposing figure in any setting, but particularly in a small- town egg joint with Navy recruitment posters on the wall. He's tall, lithe and swimmer-strong (from daily laps at the Cambridge YMCA). With a shaved head, a natural scowl and an ever-present pinch of black snuff under his front lip, Thayer looks downright piratical. It's a broke-nose mien that serves him well in the dyspeptic bars where he does much of his reporting, but one that belies his blue- blood lineage (his father was an ambassador to Singapore) and his own intellectual bent as a rapacious reader who recently did a turn as a think-tank scholar with Johns Hopkins University.

The waitress greets Thayer in a motherly way and asks if he wants his eggs poached, an item not on the menu. He says yes, asks her the news and looks around at the orderly calmness that pervades this community. "Having lived so long in the absence of rules," he says, "I've come to appreciate a properly organized society."

Thayer began his career as a flouter of rules, a hard-drinking 28- year-old with a taste for conflict and serious weapons. As a Bangkok- based freelance reporter, he quickly gained a reputation for going where others couldn't--or wouldn't--go. He learned the local dialects, lived and walked in the jungle with the bad guys and endured the sundry malignancies of modern Indochina: multiple bouts of cerebral malaria, kidnappings, a land mine explosion that shattered his leg and ruined his hearing. But the stories kept coming. In 1992, along the old Ho Chi Minh trail, Thayer discovered a forgotten band of mountain rebels who had to be convinced the Vietnam War was over and their American sponsors long gone. He has exposed heroin kingpins, corrupt politicians and murderous generals. "I want to go to my grave making people with guns, power and money nervous," he says with a frank grin. "I love it."

But more than any other, Thayer has been in pursuit of one villain for the whole of his career: Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge dictator who oversaw the greatest mass murder since Hitler. To work his way into Khmer Rouge territory, Thayer allowed himself to be captured numerous times, each occasion making friendly with another local Communist field commander. He tramped, on one trip, through more than 400 miles of jungle with Khmer Rouge units. He shared their mess and was treated in their field hospital after the truck he was riding in tripped a land mine and he woke up with his head in the engine compartment and a companion's severed leg across his chest. Finally, in 1998, Thayer's single-minded pursuit led him to what many consider the scoop of the decade, the first on-the-record interview with Pol Pot since he was driven from Phnom Penh in 1979. When they met in a sweltering jungle hut, the man responsible for killing an estimated 2 million people fixed his gaze on Thayer and said slowly, "I've known your name for a long, long time."

Five months later, Pol Pot--old and broken--was dead.

Somehow, it's even more jarring to hear Thayer's matter-of-fact telling of his extraordinary history as he moves through his now decidely ordinary life in Dorchester County. After breakfast, he rumbles down brick-paved High Street, past the boat basin crowded with both yachts and work boats. The big, shady Victorian sea captains' houses along here are slowly being bought and restored. It's an antique waterside neighborhood that seems like it could be, maybe, on the verge of better times.

"I think it's going to take off," Thayer says, pulling up to a large, well-groomed red house with a noble front porch. It's Cambridge House, a bed-and-breakfast that Thayer wants to visit. He entertains a steady stream of globe-trotting reporters, photographers and diplomats at his new place, and he considers it a host's duty to be able to recommend local inns and restaurants. Inside, innkeeper Stuart Schefers cautiously shares Thayer's optimism about the county.

"Slowly it's coming back," says Schefers. In addition to Cambridge House--already popular with bicyclists, birders and hunters-- Schefers is a partner in the Chesapeake Grill, one of a number of ambitious new restaurants in the area. "It's been neglected, but it is one of the few areas around the bay that hasn't been ruined by overdevelopment."

Driving the growing feeling that Dorchester may finally cash in on the tourism that has plumped up St. Michaels Island just across the Choptank River is a Hyatt resort being built hard on the edge of town. The $150 million, 450-acre development is slated to open in Christmas 2001, instantly becoming the biggest employer in the county. After decades of placidly watching tourist dollars zoom through town at 60 mph on their way to Ocean City, Dorchester may be in for a boom of its own.

A few minutes later, Thayer is driving down the wattle of shoreline below Cambridge, an intricate terrain laced with the many creeks and marshes that feed the Chesapeake. There are few buildings, just some modest homes, a sun-baked one-room schoolhouse where young Harriet Tubman once learned her letters and, tucked in a shoreside forest, an ancient Anglican church and cemetery. The corn fields are in stubble now; the sorghum is up and the waterfowl are on the wing. It's duck-hunting country and through the autumn, Thayer--who has heard some gunfire in his time--listens to the reports echoing across this wet, flat land.

"It's so dominated by water," he says, gazing at the low white crab boats working up the creek. Thayer is a slow, deliberate talker, and he drives the same way. Old farmers in tractor caps pass him in pickups even shabbier than his. "It's steeped in classic rural traditions, agriculture, fishing. That's what drives life here."

That will remain, Thayer believes, even if more people discover what he has, in part, because the vast 25,000-acre Blackwater refuge keeps adding more land. But there's also a doggedness to the local culture that will survive the lure of quick-buck development. (And already, more Volvos lugging bikes and kayaks are to be seen on the local roads, pulling into B&Bs and restaurants that cater to city visitors who come for the Eastern Shore the way it used to be.)

"You find that they are determined to maintain a farmer's way of life, even though they could make a killing by selling out to developers," says the war correspondent. As he rolls by, window open, a blazing white egret lifts out of the reeds with heavy, angelic flaps. "They know better than I do what a good place this is."

ESCAPES KEYS

Getting There: Dorchester County (war-free since 1865) is on the Eastern Shore, about 90 miles from Washington. From the Beltway, take Route 50 east all the way to Cambridge. James Michener set part of "Chesapeake" here, and it's the birthplace of Harriet Tubman (Home Towne Tours offers tours of Tubman sites, 410-228-0401).

Lodging: Cambridge House (112 High St., 410-221-7700, www.cambridgehousebandb.com) is a stout, begabled old captain's mansion at the town waterfront. Rooms are $120, with a five-course dinner available with weekend packages ($329). Twenty-eight miles south of Cambridge, Wingate Manor (2335 Wingate-Bishop's Head Rd., 888-397-8717, $80 to $120) is a comfortable, roomy old pile hard on the Honga River. Bikes available gratis, boats for rent.

Eating: Rolston's Chesapeake Grill (321 High St.) makes it no longer necessary to cross the Choptank for upscale steak and seafood (entrees start at $20, with a less expensive bar and bistro up front). Hysers (824 Locust St.), an honest lunch counter, mixes a serious ice cream soda.

Antiquing: Dorchester remains bargain country, with almost a dozen antiques shops around Cambridge proper, the largest being the Packing House Antique Mall (411 Dorchester Ave., 410-221-8544).

ESCAPES: The Living Fields; Cambodia's Most Famous War Reporter Retreats to Dorchester County, Md.

"If I were writing about this area," the war correspondent says with one arm draped over the steering wheel of his pickup, "that would be my lead right there."

The war correspondent is squinting down the sunny main street of Cambridge, Md.--a rank of blank storefronts and shabby 1960s siding. Specifically, he's pointing at a digital clock that glows feebly on the side of a two-story corner law office. "That clock has been six hours slow since I got here. It's the perfect emblem for this place."

This place is Dorchester County, Md., a working Chesapeake borough less than two hours from Washington where it sometimes seems the digital age has progressed no further than a half-bright digital clock overlooking a sleepy downtown. The war reporter--who has a hard time looking at any scene without mentally crafting a paragraph about it--is Nate Thayer, a hard-eyed, trouble-hunting journalist who has infiltrated some of the bloodiest jungle strongholds in Southeast Asia. To the surprise of his family, colleagues and readers, the 40- year-old Thayer recently retreated to placid Dorchester after more than 15 years of chasing danger around the world. Last spring, he bought a capacious old farmhouse and 70 acres on Church Creek, less than a mile as the heron flies from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. He's quietly writing a book and tending the fields with his longtime sweetheart, Carol Bean, and Scoop, a scrappy mutt they rescued from the slums of Bangkok. After a long adrenaline ride through hot spots and hellholes, Thayer says he came to Dorchester for a little peace. Reluctantly.

"I was the world's most unmotivated buyer," he laughs, walking across the street to his frequent breakfast spot at the counter of Doris Mae's Restaurant. "I looked at waterfront property all over the world, Thailand, France. When I finally came over here, everyone said, 'Don't even look in Dorchester, there's nothing there,' which immediately intrigued me. The overwhelming sentiment here is not to change things. That's why I like it."

A white-haired woman at the griddle looks up as Thayer enters. He's an imposing figure in any setting, but particularly in a small- town egg joint with Navy recruitment posters on the wall. He's tall, lithe and swimmer-strong (from daily laps at the Cambridge YMCA). With a shaved head, a natural scowl and an ever-present pinch of black snuff under his front lip, Thayer looks downright piratical. It's a broke-nose mien that serves him well in the dyspeptic bars where he does much of his reporting, but one that belies his blue- blood lineage (his father was an ambassador to Singapore) and his own intellectual bent as a rapacious reader who recently did a turn as a think-tank scholar with Johns Hopkins University.

The waitress greets Thayer in a motherly way and asks if he wants his eggs poached, an item not on the menu. He says yes, asks her the news and looks around at the orderly calmness that pervades this community. "Having lived so long in the absence of rules," he says, "I've come to appreciate a properly organized society."

Thayer began his career as a flouter of rules, a hard-drinking 28- year-old with a taste for conflict and serious weapons. As a Bangkok- based freelance reporter, he quickly gained a reputation for going where others couldn't--or wouldn't--go. He learned the local dialects, lived and walked in the jungle with the bad guys and endured the sundry malignancies of modern Indochina: multiple bouts of cerebral malaria, kidnappings, a land mine explosion that shattered his leg and ruined his hearing. But the stories kept coming. In 1992, along the old Ho Chi Minh trail, Thayer discovered a forgotten band of mountain rebels who had to be convinced the Vietnam War was over and their American sponsors long gone. He has exposed heroin kingpins, corrupt politicians and murderous generals. "I want to go to my grave making people with guns, power and money nervous," he says with a frank grin. "I love it."

But more than any other, Thayer has been in pursuit of one villain for the whole of his career: Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge dictator who oversaw the greatest mass murder since Hitler. To work his way into Khmer Rouge territory, Thayer allowed himself to be captured numerous times, each occasion making friendly with another local Communist field commander. He tramped, on one trip, through more than 400 miles of jungle with Khmer Rouge units. He shared their mess and was treated in their field hospital after the truck he was riding in tripped a land mine and he woke up with his head in the engine compartment and a companion's severed leg across his chest. Finally, in 1998, Thayer's single-minded pursuit led him to what many consider the scoop of the decade, the first on-the-record interview with Pol Pot since he was driven from Phnom Penh in 1979. When they met in a sweltering jungle hut, the man responsible for killing an estimated 2 million people fixed his gaze on Thayer and said slowly, "I've known your name for a long, long time."

Five months later, Pol Pot--old and broken--was dead.

Somehow, it's even more jarring to hear Thayer's matter-of-fact telling of his extraordinary history as he moves through his now decidely ordinary life in Dorchester County. After breakfast, he rumbles down brick-paved High Street, past the boat basin crowded with both yachts and work boats. The big, shady Victorian sea captains' houses along here are slowly being bought and restored. It's an antique waterside neighborhood that seems like it could be, maybe, on the verge of better times.

"I think it's going to take off," Thayer says, pulling up to a large, well-groomed red house with a noble front porch. It's Cambridge House, a bed-and-breakfast that Thayer wants to visit. He entertains a steady stream of globe-trotting reporters, photographers and diplomats at his new place, and he considers it a host's duty to be able to recommend local inns and restaurants. Inside, innkeeper Stuart Schefers cautiously shares Thayer's optimism about the county.

"Slowly it's coming back," says Schefers. In addition to Cambridge House--already popular with bicyclists, birders and hunters-- Schefers is a partner in the Chesapeake Grill, one of a number of ambitious new restaurants in the area. "It's been neglected, but it is one of the few areas around the bay that hasn't been ruined by overdevelopment."

Driving the growing feeling that Dorchester may finally cash in on the tourism that has plumped up St. Michaels Island just across the Choptank River is a Hyatt resort being built hard on the edge of town. The $150 million, 450-acre development is slated to open in Christmas 2001, instantly becoming the biggest employer in the county. After decades of placidly watching tourist dollars zoom through town at 60 mph on their way to Ocean City, Dorchester may be in for a boom of its own.

A few minutes later, Thayer is driving down the wattle of shoreline below Cambridge, an intricate terrain laced with the many creeks and marshes that feed the Chesapeake. There are few buildings, just some modest homes, a sun-baked one-room schoolhouse where young Harriet Tubman once learned her letters and, tucked in a shoreside forest, an ancient Anglican church and cemetery. The corn fields are in stubble now; the sorghum is up and the waterfowl are on the wing. It's duck-hunting country and through the autumn, Thayer--who has heard some gunfire in his time--listens to the reports echoing across this wet, flat land.

"It's so dominated by water," he says, gazing at the low white crab boats working up the creek. Thayer is a slow, deliberate talker, and he drives the same way. Old farmers in tractor caps pass him in pickups even shabbier than his. "It's steeped in classic rural traditions, agriculture, fishing. That's what drives life here."

That will remain, Thayer believes, even if more people discover what he has, in part, because the vast 25,000-acre Blackwater refuge keeps adding more land. But there's also a doggedness to the local culture that will survive the lure of quick-buck development. (And already, more Volvos lugging bikes and kayaks are to be seen on the local roads, pulling into B&Bs and restaurants that cater to city visitors who come for the Eastern Shore the way it used to be.)

"You find that they are determined to maintain a farmer's way of life, even though they could make a killing by selling out to developers," says the war correspondent. As he rolls by, window open, a blazing white egret lifts out of the reeds with heavy, angelic flaps. "They know better than I do what a good place this is."

ESCAPES KEYS

Getting There: Dorchester County (war-free since 1865) is on the Eastern Shore, about 90 miles from Washington. From the Beltway, take Route 50 east all the way to Cambridge. James Michener set part of "Chesapeake" here, and it's the birthplace of Harriet Tubman (Home Towne Tours offers tours of Tubman sites, 410-228-0401).

Lodging: Cambridge House (112 High St., 410-221-7700, www.cambridgehousebandb.com) is a stout, begabled old captain's mansion at the town waterfront. Rooms are $120, with a five-course dinner available with weekend packages ($329). Twenty-eight miles south of Cambridge, Wingate Manor (2335 Wingate-Bishop's Head Rd., 888-397-8717, $80 to $120) is a comfortable, roomy old pile hard on the Honga River. Bikes available gratis, boats for rent.

Eating: Rolston's Chesapeake Grill (321 High St.) makes it no longer necessary to cross the Choptank for upscale steak and seafood (entrees start at $20, with a less expensive bar and bistro up front). Hysers (824 Locust St.), an honest lunch counter, mixes a serious ice cream soda.

Antiquing: Dorchester remains bargain country, with almost a dozen antiques shops around Cambridge proper, the largest being the Packing House Antique Mall (411 Dorchester Ave., 410-221-8544).

May 04, 2000

Stories on Khmer rouge, killings in Korea win awards, NATION

The Nation (Thailand) 05-04-2000NATE Thayer and Nic Dunlop of the Far Eastern Economic Review werethe first runners-up at the 1999 SAIS-Novartis International JournalismAward for their outstanding work, "Inside Story of the Khmer Rouge KillingMachine", according to Johns Hopkins University's Paul H Nitze School ofAdvanced International Studies.

The Bangkok-based journalist and photographer won internationalaccolades for tracking down the chief executioner of the Khmer Rouge regime,Kang Khek Ieu, alias Duch. Dunlop discovered him living a new life as a"born-again Christian" aid worker in western Cambodia.

The John Hopkins University said their extensive reports had greatlyhelped in enhancing international pressure on the Cambodian governmentto try the remaining members of the Khmer Rogue.

Meanwhile, an Associated Press investigative news team won the topaward for its efforts to uncover the truth about Korean civilians killedby American military personnel 50 years ago in the Korean War.

The ten finalists were selected from a field of 170 entries submittedby journalists from 27 countries by a distinguished panel of journalistsfrom France, Mexico, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States.

AP Awarded for No Gun Ri Story

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Associated Press on Thursday won the 1999 SAIS-Novartis International Journalism award for its efforts to uncover the truth about Korean civilians killed by American troops at the start of the Korean War.

The story of No Gun Ri, where U.S. soldiers gunned down hundreds of helpless South Korean civilians, had never been reported. The award is shared by AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley, reporters Martha Mendoza and Sang-hun Choe, and researcher Randy Herschaft.

``Their work has had a major impact,'' said Paul Wolfowitz, dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University. ``The AP reports have also added new fuel to the debate over the nature of modern warfare and war crimes.''

The AP journalists and researcher will be honored on April 26 in Washington, D.C. In addition to the award, the winners will also receive a $15,000 prize.

The first runner-ups in the international news competition are Nate Thayer and Nic Dunlop of Far Eastern Economic Review for their work tracking down the chief executioner of the Khmer Rouge regime. The journalists found him living a new life as a born-again Christian aid worker in Cambodia and obtained a detailed confession of his crimes.

Marla A. Ressa, Jakarta bureau chief for CNN International, placed third in the competition for her eyewitness video reports on the conflicts in East Timor.

The award program is funded by a grant from the Swiss health care corporation Novartis.

The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

May 02, 1999

Torturer compares himself to St. Paul

BANGKOK, Thailand - Cambodians know him as the cruelest of the Khmer Rouge torturers, the author of such directives as "Use the hot method, even if it kills him" and, in the margin of a list of 17 children, "Kill them all."

In his own mind, he is St. Paul, a persecutor who renounced his past and became a Christian evangelist.

Kang Kek Ieu, better known by his revolutionary nickname, Duch, was the head of the Khmer Rouge secret police and the commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and killed. In the 20 years since the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power, he converted to Christianity and devoted himself to spreading the Gospel and to helping refugees who fled the brutality of his regime. "I think my biography is something like Paul's," he told Nate Thayer, an American reporter who recounted his strange story in an article last week in the Far Eastern Economic Review. "I feel very sorry about the killings and the past," said Duch (pronounced Dook), who is now 56 and had been living quietly and anonymously in western Cambodia. "I wanted to be a good communist. Now in the second half of my life, I want to serve God by doing God's work to help people." But he sought to make it clear that he had not tortured and killed for the fun of it. Indeed, he portrayed himself as a harried bureaucrat, constantly concerned about the quality of his product. "I did not get any pleasure about my work," he assured Thayer, speaking in broken English and in French. "All the confessions of my prisoners - I worried, is that true or not?" Almost as extraordinary as his personal story is the fact that, for the past two years, Cambodian authorities have known where he is, according to Thayer, and have made no move to arrest him. A senior Cambodian Justice official said Thursday that even now that Duch's whereabouts have been revealed, there are still no plans to put him in custody, as a defendant or a witness against other leaders. "I have no plan to summon him to Phnom Penh as a witness in Ta Mok's case," said Ngin Sam An, the investigating judge in the case of the only Khmer Rouge official to have been arrested, the commander Ta Mok. "There are also no plans yet to charge him separately with crimes." Youk Chhang, a researcher who has prepared evidence against Khmer Rouge leaders at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, called Duch a "very essential" witness against the people who are responsible for the deaths of more than a million people when they held power from 1975 to 1979. "He is the key to the conviction of Khmer Rouge leaders. His testimony can show that they were aware of what was happening," Youk Chhang said. Prime Minister Hun Sen has resisted international demands that other Khmer Rouge leaders be arrested, saying he fears this could cause a violent reaction among their followers, who now live in semiautonomous areas in the north and west of the country. Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea are prominent among these leaders. The two men surrendered last December and were given a guided tour of the country before returning to the security of the remote Khmer Rouge- controlled town of Pailin. In the interview, Duch implicated both men, as well as Ta Mok, as leaders who ordered the torture and killings he carried out at the prison known as S-21. "The first was Pol Pot," he said, naming the Khmer Rouge leader who died a year ago. "The second was Nuon Chea, the third Ta Mok." He added: "Khieu Samphan knew of the killings, but less than the others." The overriding rule at Tuol Sleng, Thayer quoted Duch, was a simple one: "Whoever was arrested must die." When a Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, Duch fled with other Khmer Rouge leaders into the jungles. According to his own account he left the movement in 1992 and became a teacher. Then, under assumed names, he worked until a few months ago with United Nations and private relief organizations. It was at that time that he converted to Christianity, he said. "After my experience in life I decided I must give my spirit to God," he said. Duch, whose thin face, large teeth and prominent ears made him one of the more recognizable faces in photographs of the Khmer Rouge, said he was fully prepared to face trial. "I have done very bad things in my life," he said, the first Khmer Rouge leader to make that admission. "Now it is time to bear the consequences of my actions."

April 29, 1999

KHMER ROUGE TORTURE FOUND, NOW A BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The feared chief of the Khmer Rouge's security service, who ordered the torture and killing of at least 14,000 men, women and children in the late 1970s, has been found, a newsmagazine reported.

The report about the discovery of the man known as Duch (pronounced dookh) was to appear in today's issue of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review, the weekly said.

Photographer Nic Dunlop and Review reporter Nate Thayer, who in 1997 became the first outsider to see the notorious Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 18 years, said they met Duch. Duch disappeared when the Khmer Rouge were toppled in 1979 and has long been presumed dead. He converted to Christianity and worked until late last year with various international aid organizations that were unaware of his identity, the magazine said. The government said it knew of Duch's general whereabouts two years ago, though no move was made to take him into custody. He is believed to have been named by the United Nations in a recent list of Khmer Rouge members who should be tried for crimes against humanity. Duch, 56, was quoted by the Review as saying he was deeply sorry for the killings and was willing to face an international tribunal. Genuine remorse would contrast with the grudging apologies offered by some Khmer Rouge leaders. Duch's emergence could increase pressure on Prime Minister Hun Sen to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to trial. In theory, he could be the key witness, able to implicate those above and below him. Only one senior Khmer Rouge figure, hard-line general Ta Mok, is in custody awaiting trial. Most other leaders are living in freedom in exchange for making peace with the government. Prosecutors indicated this week that they may charge Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, two close lieutenants of Pol Pot. Following the news of Duch's discovery, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith urged him to turn himself in and testify. Kanharith said Duch should be charged, but "it is up to the court to decide." Youk Chhang, director of a documentation center that has gathered evidence for such a trial, shook his head in amazement on Wednesday when shown a recent image of Duch by Associated Press Television News, which has obtained exclusive video shot by Dunlop. "What's important is to have him alive," Youk Chhang said. "He's the key person who could testify as to how the leaders advised him, in terms of security, on assassination and killing of the so-called enemies of the revolution." The best estimate made by the U.S.-funded Cambodian Genocide Program is that 1.7 million Cambodians out of a population of 7.9 million were killed, tortured, starved or worked to death during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge reign. Duch born Kaing Khek Iev in 1942 headed the internal security organization and was the director of Tuol Sleng, a Phnom Penh high school transformed into an interrogation prison. Victims were chained to bed-frames and tortured to force false "confessions"

January 21, 1999

Pol Pot `suicide' to avoid US trial

POL POT committed suicide last year after learning his Khmer Rouge rivals had offered to hand him over for trial on genocide charges, a Hong Kong magazine said.

But the US turned down the chance three weeks earlier to take the former Khmer Rouge leader into custody, because it had not prepared a legal basis on which to arrest and try him.

The former Cambodian leader, blamed for the deaths of 1 million of his countrymen, is said by the Far Eastern Economic Review to have taken an overdose of tranquillisers and anti-malarial pills at a Khmer Rouge stronghold on the Thai border. He died on 15 April 1998, aged 73. His associates said he died of a heart attack but within days Thai intelligence sources said it was poison and that it "got into his body with his consent", according to a Reuters report at the time. No autopsy was done before the body was cremated and until now no one had come up with a detailed scenario of the circumstances surrounding the death. Before the cremation the Thai army took samples of hair, skin and fingerprints. Yesterday's Far Eastern Economic Review article was by Nate Thayer, who has consistently scooped the world on Khmer Rouge reports. According to what he says are impeccable sources, Ta Mok, the one-legged rival Khmer Rouge military commander who captured the ailing Pol Pot and his entourage in 1997, offered to hand him over to the US for trial just before his death. Mr Thayer said that on 25 March 1998 "the Khmer Rouge made a decision and contacted the Americans to turn him over but the Americans turned them down. They had no legal basis to arrest and detain him". The Review said Washington scrambled to establish grounds for an arrest and to find a country where a trial could take place for the carnage during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule, but "Brother Number One" was dead before preparations were complete. He had discovered Ta Mok's plan when listening to a Voice of America radio broadcast, and killed himself, said Mr Thayer. "Pol Pot died of a lethal dose of a combination of Valium and chloroquine." In the days before the suicide US officials had been consulting Thailand and other countries about capturing him but did not itself plan such a move, according to reports at the time. However, Pol Pot presumably knew he was likely to be captured or handed over to face genocide charges. The question of an international tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders is very much a live issue at the moment following the surrender last month of two Pol Pot henchmen, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea. Since they gave themselves up they have been given a VIP tour of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and appeared at a press conference at which they said they were sorry for their roles in the deaths under the Khmer Rouge. "Let bygones be bygones," said Khieu Samphan. The Cambodian Prime Minister, Hun Sen, at first hinted that a trial of the two men might not be in the interests of national reconciliation but recently said he supported legal action against the remaining Khmer Rouge leaders.

December 05, 1998

SURRENDER OF KHMER ROUGE'S LAST FIGHTING FORCE IS REPORTED

The last main fighting force of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Marxist guerrillas who killed nearly 2 million Cambodians, have surrendered, a journalist close to the rebels said today.

Negotiators for the last band of guerrillas holed up near the Thai border met yesterday with representatives of the government in Phnom Penh at Preah Vihear temple and agreed to lay down their arms, according to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

In 1997, Thayer became the first journalist allowed to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had not been seen in public in nearly two decades and died in April. Thayer is one of few outsiders trusted by the guerrillas.

The surrender of the Khmer Rouge would bring to an end more than 30 years of civil war in Cambodia that began with the Marxist guerrilla's insurgency against the government in Phnom Penh in the late 1960s.

Although the fighters' top surviving leaders, Tak Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, were not included in the deal, they no longer command any troops. Their former followers apparently did not want to give them up.

Khem Nuon, Ta Mok's chief of staff who negotiated the surrender with government officials, said simply that they are ``retired'' and he refused to go into details about them, Thayer said.

The Cambodian government and the United States have expressed a desire to capture all three and try them for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Khem Nuon claimed he was negotiating on behalf of 5,000 remaining ragtag troops and 15,000 civilians living under Khmer Rouge control.

Thayer said, however, that he believed the estimate of fighting men was inflated, and that many of the civilians are living in the Phu Noi refugee camp in Thailand.

``There must be unity. There is no other way. There is no way for a military solution. No weapons. Only political struggle,'' Thayer said Khem Nuon told him in a telephone interview.

The government was represented at the negotiations by Meas Sopheas, deputy chief of staff of the Cambodian military, Thayer said.

Under the agreement, Thayer said the remaining guerrillas will join the government army and the civilians will return to Anlong Veng, the guerrillas' former stronghold in the north.

Although it is possible some tiny bands of guerrillas are still wandering the jungles, Thayer said he knew of no sizable Khmer Rouge fighting force that could pose a viable threat to the government.

SURRENDER OF KHMER ROUGE'S LAST FIGHTING FORCE IS REPORTED

The last main fighting force of the Khmer Rouge, the radical Marxist guerrillas who killed nearly 2 million Cambodians, have surrendered, a journalist close to the rebels said today.

Negotiators for the last band of guerrillas holed up near the Thai border met yesterday with representatives of the government in Phnom Penh at Preah Vihear temple and agreed to lay down their arms, according to Nate Thayer of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

In 1997, Thayer became the first journalist allowed to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had not been seen in public in nearly two decades and died in April. Thayer is one of few outsiders trusted by the guerrillas.

The surrender of the Khmer Rouge would bring to an end more than 30 years of civil war in Cambodia that began with the Marxist guerrilla's insurgency against the government in Phnom Penh in the late 1960s.

Although the fighters' top surviving leaders, Tak Mok, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, were not included in the deal, they no longer command any troops. Their former followers apparently did not want to give them up.

Khem Nuon, Ta Mok's chief of staff who negotiated the surrender with government officials, said simply that they are ``retired'' and he refused to go into details about them, Thayer said.

The Cambodian government and the United States have expressed a desire to capture all three and try them for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Khem Nuon claimed he was negotiating on behalf of 5,000 remaining ragtag troops and 15,000 civilians living under Khmer Rouge control.

Thayer said, however, that he believed the estimate of fighting men was inflated, and that many of the civilians are living in the Phu Noi refugee camp in Thailand.

``There must be unity. There is no other way. There is no way for a military solution. No weapons. Only political struggle,'' Thayer said Khem Nuon told him in a telephone interview.

The government was represented at the negotiations by Meas Sopheas, deputy chief of staff of the Cambodian military, Thayer said.

Under the agreement, Thayer said the remaining guerrillas will join the government army and the civilians will return to Anlong Veng, the guerrillas' former stronghold in the north.

Although it is possible some tiny bands of guerrillas are still wandering the jungles, Thayer said he knew of no sizable Khmer Rouge fighting force that could pose a viable threat to the government.

November 25, 1998

Briefs: Pol Pot Interviewer Gets Award

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- Nate Thayer, the first Western journalist in nearly two decades to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 1997, was awarded $20,000 this weekend for outstanding international investigative reporting.

Thayer is the first recipient of the prize from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He is the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.

Briefs: Pol Pot Interviewer Gets Award

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- Nate Thayer, the first Western journalist in nearly two decades to interview Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 1997, was awarded $20,000 this weekend for outstanding international investigative reporting.

Thayer is the first recipient of the prize from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. He is the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.

Nate Thayer is the kind of reporter that makes idealistic youngsters want to be journalists. He has risked his life in jungles, crossed the front lines of a civil war, been expelled from his home for exposing corrupt ministers and made secret rendezvous with genocidal killers. All for what is universally acknowledged to be the scoop of the decade - finding Pol Pot.

Now his lustre has been burnished all the brighter by his refusal to kow-tow to the might of the American TV network ABC. Furthermore he has become the first person in 57 years to turn down a prestigious Peabody award because it would have been shared with what he believes is a duplicitous media monster.

When he found the hidden Khmer leader last July, Thayer was described as having spent 10 years on the trail of Pol Pot.

"In fact that is rather a lot of hype," he says. "It's not like I had an obsession with Pol Pot. I was a Cambodian correspondent and lived there for six years. I also lived in Thailand for another five years so obviously there were plenty of other Cambodian and Asian stories that I covered.

"But I had always thought that Pol Pot was one of the last great interviews in the world. Here was a household name the world over who had never explained himself. He was perhaps the most effective 'secret leader' of the twentieth century.

"So all the time I lived in Cambodia and Thailand I kept one eye on Pol Pot. I made numerous trips into the jungle and built up contacts with Khmer Rouge leaders. And I made constant requests for access or an interview with Pol Pot.

"The break came in June 1997 when I was expelled from Cambodia for exposing connections between the Prime Minister and heroin traffickers. I decided to write a book so I spent a lot of time just sitting in a room with the Khmer Rouge's clandestine radio station on in the background. I heard then that the defence minister had been deemed a traitor and executed so I immediately went to my Khmer Rouge contacts who told me about serious infighting within the leadership and that Pol Pot had been overthrown.

"They even announced Pot's overthrow on the radio but no one believed them and that became the basis for my argument for getting access. No one would believe he had been overthrown unless a western journalist got in to prove it.

"From there I began the process of getting into one of the most impenetrable places in the world. The only foreigners to have been there before were the three guys who were kidnapped and executed. It was made all the harder because last July a civil war broke out in Phnom Penh and I had to fly to Bangkok and try from there by illegally crossing the border, not to mention the front lines of the Phnom Penh civil war and the front lines of the Khmer Rouge civil war.

"Once me and my cameraman were in a hotel over the border I had to phone a number in Europe to tell them my room number before being infiltrated into the jungle.

Thayer never did actually interview the leader responsible for the deaths of an estimated one million Cambodians. Instead, he filmed two hours of Pol Pot being denounced at a classic Maoist show trial.

Nevertheless, his story was dynamite, and as soon as it became known that he had footage, pictures and a story he was bombarded with hundreds of calls from news organisations. His main priority was to have the print story go in the Far Eastern Economic Review, which he had worked for as a freelancer for years and which had supported him for six months while he tried to get to Pol Pot in the jungle.

But he sold the North American television rights to his footage to ABC for $350,000 - "Mainly because ABC's Ted Koppel is as good as it gets on American TV. He seemed like the last honourable guy."

But now Thayer is seriously pissed off at ABC. The network's PR department got hold of the footage and did a major number on it. They made enhanced video-grabs which they gave to newspapers under an "ABC Exclusive" tag. This meant that, using ABC's released material, the New York Times was able to run Thayer's story before he had even started writing for the Economic Review. And by putting out the video grabs and downloading images onto its Web site, ABC ruined Thayer's chances of selling the stills from his trip into the jungle.

"Basically they said 'f*** you' to my lawyers because they knew their lawyers could eat a freelancer alive," says Thayer. "It was an outrageous ethical violation. They then refused to pay me my agreed fee until I signed something saying that they had done nothing wrong. It took 10 months to get my money and they only paid up because they knew when I had won the Peabody that it would turn into a PR nightmare."

ABC claims that its pre-broadcast publicity was perfectly normal behaviour and Thayer was naive for not understanding this.

Thayer believes the network's behaviour speaks volumes about the state of US television news. "ABC have one correspondent for the whole of Asia so they take freelancers' work and try to take credit for it. The function of people like Koppel is to prove that there is a serious side.

"But in reality to them the function of journalism in a free society is no more than delivering audiences to advertisers."

May 18, 1998

Peabody winner rejects award for Pol Pot story

AP Online 05-18-1998 NEW YORK (AP) _ Nate Thayer, a Bangkok, Thailand-based journalist who sold a story about Cambodian leader Pol Pot to ABC's ``Nightline,'' rejected the prestigious Peabody award for the piece, saying ABC and Ted Koppel stole his work.

Thayer, 38, said in the May 25 edition of New Yorker magazine, that Koppel promised the story would be a one-week exclusive with North American television rights only.

But before the story went on the air, Thayer said ABC shipped photos of the footage worldwide, put the news on its Web site and allowed The New York Times to preview part of the story in a publicity effort. The effort scooped Thayer's own print account for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.

In a letter rejecting the Peabody, Thayer said ``Ted Koppel and `Nightline' literally stole my work, took credit for it, trivialized it, refused to pay me and then attempted to bully and extort me when I complained. They should not be rewarded for this behavior and I under no circumstances want my name associated with these egregious violations of basic journalistic ethics and integrity.''

ABC said the pre-broadcast publicity is common practice for such an exclusive story.

Koppel said he was sorry Thayer chose not to accept the Peabody, broadcasting's equivalent to the Pulitzer.

``While he rejects the award, I don't want to reject the enormous contribution that he made to bringing the world this story,'' Koppel said last Monday at the 57th annual awards luncheon.

Thayer was paid $350,000 last month for the story, which aired last July. The video captured the show trial of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader blamed for the deaths of up to 2 million of his countrymen. It was the first time in nearly 20 years the Cambodian dictator, who died in prison in March, was caught on camera.

Copyright 1998 The Associated Press All Rights Reserved.

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May 11, 1998

Television Winners.(Peabody Awards)

"THE TRIAL OF POL POT" ABC News/Nightline Washington, D.C.

The best television journalism is groundbreaking, authoritative and evidentiary. It brings a significant news event to the forefront, and does so with the critical background research, context and thoughtful presentation that it requires. Such is the case with this series of reports spanning July 2830, 1997. The reports were made possible by the heroic and exclusive footage provided by Nate Thayer, correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, and his cameraman, David McKaige of Asiaworks. Mr. Thayer and Mr. McKaige were invited to a remote area of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge to witness the so-called "trial" of Pol Pot, one of history's infamous genocidal despots. The men brought back video of stunning clarity and historical importance. While broadcasting this monumental reportage was in itself significant and meritorious, Nightline enhanced its meaning and impact by providing exceptional historical perspective, important tests of authenticity, and valuable interpretations about the veracity and significance of the trial. In addition to the heroic and historic efforts of Mr. Thayer, credit is due to the accomplished broadcast news professionals at Nightline, including executive producer Tom Bettag, anchor and managing editor Ted Koppel, producers Leroy Sievers and Bryan Myers, senior producers Richard Harris, Mark Nelson and C. Scott Willis, director Eric Siegel, and correspondent Jim Laurie. For presenting a television news event of international significance and for doing so with reasoned analysis, skillful writing, balanced research, and insightful interviewing, a Peabody is presented to ABC News/Nightline for "The Trial of Pol Pot."

Ta Mok, the movement's strongman, vows to fight on, and blames his longtime comrade-in-arms for the Khmer Rouge's desperate plight. "It is good that Pol Pot is dead. I feel no sorrow," he says. Then he levels a bizarre accusation against the rabidly nationalistic mass murderer: "Pol Pot was a Vietnamese agent. I have the documents."

A young Khmer Rouge fighter, his leaders only metres away, leans close to a visiting reporter and whispers in Khmer: "This movement is finished. Can you get me to America?"

Besieged in dense jungles along the Thai border, the remnants of the Khmer Rouge are battling for survival in the wake of three weeks of chaotic defections and the loss of their northern stronghold of Anlong Veng. Having lost faith in the harsh leadership of Ta Mok, several commanders are negotiating to defect to the guerrilla forces loyal to deposed Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh.

Ta Mok's growing paranoia and isolation were only some of the revelations to come out of an exclusive tour of shrinking Khmer Rouge-held territory north of Anlong Veng the day after Pol Pot's death. Khmer Rouge cadres and Pol Pot's wife recounted the last, ignominious days of his life, as he was moved through the jungle to escape advancing troops.

Pol Pot

There was no visible evidence that the former Cambodian dictator was murdered. Cadres say he died of a heart attack on the night of April 15. In the days after his death, Khmer Rouge envoys held secret peace talks in Bangkok with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh, and had their first direct contact with U.S. officials in more than two decades. Yet at the same time, Khmer Rouge holdouts were joining up with Ranariddh's rebel forces, making it likely that the insurgency will continue as Cambodia prepares for crucial elections in July.

The Khmer Rouge weren't trying to expose their shaky future when they allowed a REVIEW reporter to enter their territory, but to prove to the world that the architect of Cambodia's killing fields was indeed dead. Leading the way to Pol Pot's house to display the ultimate proof, a cadre warns against stepping off the path. "Be careful, there are mines everywhere."

The sickly-sweet stench of death fills the wooden hut. Fourteen hours have passed since Pol Pot's demise, and his body is decomposing in the tropical heat. His face and fingers are covered with purple blotches.

Khmer Rouge leaders insist that Pol Pot, aged 73, died of natural causes. Already visibly ill and professing to benear death when interviewed by the REVIEW in October, he had been weakened by a shortage of food and the strain of being moved around to escape the government offensive. "Pol Pot died of heart failure," Ta Mok says. "I did not kill him."

That night, Ta Mok had wanted to move Pol Pot to another house for security reasons. "He was sitting in his chair waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sound of dying. When she touched him he had passed away already. It was at 10:15 last night."

There are no signs of foul play, but Pol Pot has a pained expression on his face, as if he did not die peacefully. One eye is shut and the other half open. Cotton balls are stuffed up his nostrils to prevent leakage of body fluids. By his body lie his rattan fan, blue-and-red peasant scarf, bamboo cane and white plastic sandals. His books and other possessions have been confiscated since he was ousted by his comrades in an internal power struggle 10 months earlier. Two vases of purple bougainvillea stand at the head of the bed. Otherwise, the room is empty, save for a small short-wave radio.

Pol Pot listened religiously to Voice of America broadcasts on that radio, but the April 15 news on the Khmer-language service may have been too much to bear. The lead story was the REVIEW's report that Khmer Rouge leaders--desperate for food, medicine and international support--had decided to turn him over to an international tribunal to face trial for crimes against humanity. "He listened to VOA every night, and VOA on Wednesday reported your story at 8 p.m. that he would be turned over to an international court," says Gen. Khem Nuon, the Khmer Rouge army chief-of-staff. "We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him."

A week earlier, Nuon had said that Pol Pot knew of the decision, but now he says the ageing leader had not been fully informed. "We decided clearly to send him" to an international court, says Nuon, "but we only told him that we were in a very difficult situation and perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that."

Perched nervously by the deathbed is Pol Pot's wife, a 40-year-old former ammunition porter for the Khmer Rouge named Muon. Clutching her hand is their 12-year-old daughter, Mul. A peasant woman, Muon says she has never laid eyes on a Westerner before. She corroborates Ta Mok's account of Pol Pot's death. "Last night, he said he felt dizzy. I asked him to lie down. I heard him make a noise. When I went to touch him, he had died."

Pol Pot married her after his first wife went insane in the 1980s as the Khmer Rouge tried to survive in the jungle after their reign of terror was ended by invading Vietnamese troops. Muon seems oblivious to her husband's bloodstained past, caught only in the anguish of the present.

"He told me a few weeks ago: 'My father died at 73. I am 73 now. My time is not far away,'" she says. "It was a way of telling me that he was preparing to die." Reaching down to caress his face, she bursts into tears. "He was always a good husband. He tried his best to educate the children not to be traitors. Since I married him in 1985, I never saw him do a bad thing."

Asked about his reputation as a mass-murderer, her lips quiver and she casts a terrified glance at senior Khmer Rouge cadres hovering nearby. "I know nothing about politics," she says. "It is up to history to judge. That is all I want to say."

She has reason to be terrified. "As to what I will do with his family, I haven't decided," says Ta Mok. "If I let them go, will they say anything bad about me? Maybe they might be used by Hun Sen," he says, referring to his nemesis, the Cambodian premier.

Outside the front door is a small vegetable garden tended by Pol Pot's wife and daughter; next to it, a freshly dug trench where Pol Pot and his family were forced to cower as artillery bombarded the jungle redoubt in recent weeks.

Pol Pot's last days were spent in flight and fear of capture--a humiliating end for the man who ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. According to his wife and Khmer Rouge leaders, he dyed his hair black on April 10 in a desperate attempt to avoid capture by mutinying Khmer Rouge troops as he fled to the Dongrek mountains north of Anlong Veng. "Pol Pot feared that he could be caught. By dying his hair he was trying to disguise himself. For such a person to do that, it showed real fear in his mind," says Gen. Nuon.

The guerrillas had been unable to provide their ousted leader with sufficient food since being forced from their headquarters in late March. "For the last few weeks he had diarrhoea and we haven't had much food because of the fighting with the traitors," recounts Ta Mok.

As Pol Pot fled, the remnants of the movement he created 38 years ago crumbled before his eyes. A few days before his death, he was being driven with his wife and daughter to a new hideout by Gen. Non Nou, his personal guard. From his blue Toyota Land Cruiser, Pol Pot saw Khmer Rouge civilians--cadres say around 30,000--who had been forced from their fields and villages by government troops and Khmer Rouge defectors.

"When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke down into tears," says Non Nou. His wife echoes the account, and quotes Pol Pot as saying: "My only wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country." Pol Pot never expressed any regrets, she says. "What I would like the world to know was that he was a good man, a patriot, a good father."

Asked how she wanted her father remembered, Pol Pot's only child stands with her head bowed, eyes downcast and filled with tears. "Now my daughter is not able to say anything," interjects Muon. "I think she will let history judge her father."

History will have to, because death has deprived the world of the chance to judge the man responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million people.

Ieng Sary

Although Pol Pot has cheated justice, other leaders of that regime remain at large, including Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who are sheltering with Ta Mok. Others, such as Keo Pok, Mam Nay and Pol Pot's former brother-in-law, Ieng Sary, have defected with their troops to the government side since 1996.

Although Pol Pot's life will stand as the darkest chapter in Cambodian history, his death is likely to be just a historical footnote. What's more likely to affect Cambodia's future is the continuing disintegration of the Khmer Rouge. This is prompting desperate attempts by what's left of the movement to find security.

The day after Pol Pot died, senior Khmer Rouge officials travelled to Bangkok, where they held secret negotiations with Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh. There, they offered for the first time to cooperate with elements of the Cambodian government. "Yes, we are prepared to negotiate. We are in the process," says Ta Mok. "But I am not going to be a running dog of Vietnam like Ieng Sary. In a nutshell, we want to dissolve the Hun Sen government and establish a national government that includes all national forces."

Interviewed on April 18, one of the chief Khmer Rouge negotiators, Cor Bun Heng, said of the unprecedented meeting: "It was a good beginning and cordial. But these things take time." Added the other senior negotiator, Gen. Nuon: "We believe that the only way out is national reconciliation between all the parties. We know that the entire Cambodian population wants peace."

What's more, Nuon and Cor Bun Heng said they met secretly on April 17 with American officials in Bangkok, and laid out their demands for a political settlement. It was the first official, direct contact between the United States and the Khmer Rouge for at least two decades. U.S. officials wouldn't comment.

In the jungles, Ta Mok knows that his capture and trial is sought by the international community. He wants to use Pol Pot's death to wipe the slate clean. "The world community should stop talking about this now that Pol Pot is dead. It was all Pol Pot. He annihilated many good cadres and destroyed our movement. I hope he suffers after death," he says. He then asks a visiting reporter to get hold of a satellite telephone for him, sketching a collapsible phone he has seen. "I want a good telephone. One that I can call anywhere in the world."

But working the phone will not prevent Ta Mok from rapidly losing the loyalty of his own commanders. Privately, many of his top officers and cadres hold him responsible for the collapse of the movement since he seized control from Pol Pot last July. "He is very tired," says a senior Khmer Rouge official. "No man can shoulder all the political, diplomatic and military burdens by himself." Others are less kind. "He has no more support from many of his own people," whispers one cadre. "But we don't know where to go. Cambodia has no good leaders."

Fear was in the faces of many leaders and cadres still holed up near the Thai border--and for good reason. "There may be more traitors, it is normal. But in the end they will all die," Ta Mok says. He's a man of his word: Three top commanders arrested with Pol Pot last year were executed in late March because some of the fighters who mutinied were loyal to them. "It was a decision made by the people," Ta Mok shrugs.

He gives the impression of being increasingly out of touch with reality, seeing enemies everywhere and unwilling to compromise. His brutal tactics are also a source of unease among his remaining loyalists. "Our movement will only get stronger. We have sent our forces close to Phnom Penh and they have carried out their tasks successfully," he says. The "task" he boasts of was the recent massacre of 22 ethnic Vietnamese, including women and children, in a fishing village in Kompong Chhnang province.

The REVIEW has learned that many of the estimated 1,600 guerrillas still nominally under Ta Mok's command have pledged allegiance to the forces loyal to Ranariddh's Funcinpec party, who occupy nearby jungles. Cadres say that in negotiations with Funcinpec's Gen. Nyek Bun Chhay, they have pledged loyalty to Ranariddh's party and agreed to force Ta Mok into "retirement."

This presents a political dilemma for Ranariddh. He has pledged to abide by a Japanese peace plan that aims to create conditions for Funcinpec to campaign freely ahead of the July elections--something Hun Sen has resisted. The Japanese plan specifically calls for the severing of links between Funcinpec troops and Ta Mok's guerrillas. For the moment, Ranariddh is choosing denial. "I do not have any cooperative relations with the Khmer Rouge," he said on April 17. "Rumours currently circulating to the effect that forces loyal to me are supporting the Khmer Rouge forces in Anlong Veng are not true."

That's not the only obstacle facing Japan and Asean as they try to find a formula that would allow Ranariddh to return home to campaign for the polls. The job was already hard enough for the Thai, Philippine and Indonesian foreign ministers who met King Norodom Sihanouk in Siem Riep in mid-April. But then Sihanouk made it harder by telling them Ranariddh should pull out of the elections--and Cambodian politics altogether--and instead prepare to be king, according to furious Funcinpec members.

Meanwhile, Cambodia's neighbours are becoming increasingly exasperated by the seemingly endless war. Interviewed in Bangkok, Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan expresses optimism that elections could be held in Cambodia, but also voices a warning. "Without a resolution to the Cambodian conflict, the region is being perceived as insecure, unstable. That prevents further cooperation and development for Asia," he says, pointing to plans to develop the Mekong basin that are now delicately poised.

China, previously hesitant about taking part in the Mekong's development, is now willing to participate, Surin says. That means that Cambodia, at the heart of the Mekong Basin, is now the major remaining obstacle. "The region is being denied this development by the existing Cambodian conflict," says Surin. "Certainly, there is a sense of Cambodia fatigue in the international community. Cambodians should realize that."

Nate Thayer, winner of the 1998 ICIJ Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting, is the Southeast Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. In July 1997, after years of cultivating sources, Thayer was allowed in to the remote northern Cambodia field headquarters of the Khmer Rouge for a "people's tribunal" of their ousted former leader Pol Pot. Three months later, Thayer repeated his exclusive coverage, this time conducting the first interview with Pol Pot in 18 years. It was also the only interview before Pol Pot - blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1978 - died.

Thayer, a native of Washington, D.C., had spent years cultivating sources in Thailand, Cambodia, and beyond, trying to track down the elusive Pol Pot. A contributor to Jane's Defence Weekly, The Associated Press, and more than 40 publications, Thayer began writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1989 and made dozens of reporting trips into resistance-controlled Cambodia. The physical toll of his work included hospitalization 16 times for cerebral malaria and broken bones and shrapnel wounds after his truck hit an anti-tank mine.

Thayer's dogged reporting also earned him The World Press Award, the 1997 "Scoop of the Year" British press award, and the 1998 Francis Fox Wood Award for Courage in Journalism. While a 1996-1997 visiting scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Thayer received a grant to write a book on Cambodian politics, which will be published next year.

While the focus of Thayer's reporting has been Asia, he has also covered the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba, and Mongolia. He continues to concentrate on international organized crime, narcotics trafficking, human rights, and areas of military conflict.

April 23, 1998

Report: Khmer Rouge collapse drove Pol Pot to tears

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) _ Pol Pot, the tyrannical leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, broke down in tears when he realized his once-mighty guerrilla movement was on the brink of defeat, according to an account of his final days published Thursday.

Pol Pot died on April 15 in a small hut near the Thai border as Cambodian government troops were trying to finish off the remnants of the Khmer Rouge. The 73-year-old revolutionary died of a heart attack, said his comrades-turned-captors.

The account in the Hong Kong-based magazine Far Eastern Economic Review suggests the heart attack may have been brought on by hunger, lack of medical care, even shock - upon learning the Khmer Rouge was preparing to turn him over to an international tribunal for trial on genocide charges.

The account was written by U.S. journalist Nate Thayer, who last year became the first foreign journalist in 18 years to have an interview with the elusive Pol Pot. The interview occurred shortly after Pol Pot was deposed as head of the movement and placed under house arrest.

Pol Pot led the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime that through its radical Maoist-inspired policies caused the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians - either in mass executions or from starvation and disease. Since then, the Khmer Rouge has operated as a guerrilla army operating mostly from northern Cambodia.

Thayer quoted a Khmer Rouge military commander as saying Pol Pot died just hours after he learned of the plan to hand him over from a news broadcast by the Voice of America shortwave radio service.

``We thought the shock of him hearing this on VOA might have killed him,'' the commander, Khem Nuon, is quoted as saying.

Khem Nuon, the story noted, had told Thayer a different account a week earlier, saying Pol Pot had been informed of the decision to send him for trial and accepted it with revolutionary stoicism.

Now he claims they only told him ``we were in a very difficult situation and perhaps it was better that he go abroad. Tears came to his eyes when I told him that.''

Thayer wrote that the fighting which drove the Khmer Rouge from their northern Cambodian stronghold of Anlong Veng prevented the ailing revolutionary from receiving proper care.

``For the last few weeks he had diarrhea and we haven't had much food,'' the current Khmer Rouge leader, Ta Mok, was quoted as saying.

A few days before his death, Pol Pot dyed his gray hair black, suggesting he was afraid of being captured.

At one point, Pol Pot was able to glimpse the turmoil caused by the fighting as he and his wife and 12-year-old daughter were being driven from one shelter to another, his minder, Non Nou, was quoted as saying.

``When he saw the peasants and our cadres lying by the side of the road with no food or shelter, he broke down into tears,'' said Non Nou.

Pol Pot's 40-year-old widow, Muon, quoted him as saying ``My only wish is that Cambodians stay united so that Vietnam will not swallow our country.'' Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979.

Ta Mok denied, as he has previously, speculation that he had Pol Pot killed.

The very night Pol Pot died, Ta Mok said, he had wanted to move him to another house for security reasons.

``He was sitting in his chair, waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sound of dying. When she touched him, he had passed away already.''

Pol Pot's World Ended With a Whimper; Khmer Rouge Chief Was Sick, Friendless, Frightened of Dying

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the architect of Cambodia's killing fields, spent his final days sick, hungry and fearful of dying, according to new details emerging from the Cambodian jungle.

He was suffering from diarrhea. He cried at the sight of the troops he once commanded collapsing along the roadside. And he could hear the sound of government artillery moving ever closer to his jungle redoubt -- sometimes forcing him and his wife to cower in a freshly dug trench just outside their small wooden hut.

A final indignity came when Pol Pot learned on the Voice of America's Cambodian language broadcast that his former colleagues were negotiating to turn him over to an international tribunal to face genocide charges. Pol Pot heard the news at 8 p.m. on April 15. Two hours and 15 minutes later, he was dead, apparently of a heart attack, his comrades and wife said. These new insights into Pol Pot's final days have emerged in a detailed article in today's Far Eastern Economic Review written by correspondent NateThayer, a Cambodia expert who has spent the last decade reporting on the elusive Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement and who last year became the first reporter to interview Pol Pot in nearly two decades. Thayer's account -- based on hours of interviews with Pol Pot's 40-year-old wife, Muon, and the new hard-line Khmer Rouge leader, Ta Mok -- paint an extraordinary picture of the enigmatic Pol Pot's physical and mental deterioration. Perhaps most striking is that the Khmer Rouge leader deemed responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million to 1.7 million Cambodians expressed fear about his own demise. " `My father died at 73,' " his wife quoted Pol Pot as saying. " `I am 73 now. My time is not far away.' " Ta Mok, a one-legged guerrilla commander known as "the Butcher," told Thayer: "He wanted to live. He took medicine all the time. He wanted to live. He did not want to die, but he had lost everything, and he was old." Other Khmer Rouge leaders described Pol Pot's distress recently, when he looked out the window of a four-wheel drive vehicle as he was being driven away from a jungle battlefield and saw guerrillas he once commanded lying along the road without food or shelter. "He broke down in tears," said Gen. Noun Nou, who was driving the vehicle. Muon, Pol Pot's wife, said: "He saw the people lying on the ground and he cried." Pol Pot then told her: " `My only wish is that the Cambodians stay united, so that Vietnam will not swallow our country.' " From the new accounts, Pol Pot's final days were those of a man hunted -- and clearly afraid of being caught, particularly by Cambodian government troops whom he saw as puppets of Vietnam, historically a foe of Cambodia. There was little food available once the government offensive forced the rebels from their base at Anlong Veng, said Khmer Rouge officials. "For the last few weeks he had diarrhea, and we haven't had much food because of the fighting," Ta Mok said. On April 10, five days before his death, Pol Pot dyed his gray hair black to fool Khmer Rouge troops who had mutinied and were fighting on the side of government forces. "For a person to do that, it showed real fear in his mind," Khmer Rouge military chief of staff Khem Nuon was quoted as saying. At one point, Khmer Rouge leaders, including Ta Mok, told Pol Pot that he might have to leave Cambodia, and tears reportedly welled in the former dictator's eyes. Their intention was to turn Pol Pot over to an international tribunal to gain new respectability. Khmer Rouge officials even asked Thayer's advice on how to turn over Pol Pot, since they had no contact with the United States or other Western countries or groups. Thayer suggested they approach the International Committee of the Red Cross. But Pol Pot apparently was led to believe that he would be sent into asylum overseas, not turned over for trial. It appears he discovered the truth on Wednesday, April 15, when he tuned in his shortwave radio -- one of the few possessions he had left -- to the 8 p.m. Cambodian language news broadcast of the Voice of America. "He listened to VOA every night," Khem Nuon told Thayer in an interview in the jungle, "and VOA on Wednesday reported your story at 8 p.m., that he would be turned over to an international court. We thought the shock of hearing this on VOA might have killed him." Thayer was the first journalist invited across the Cambodian border from Thailand last Thursday to see the body -- which he said seemed to wear a pained expression, with one eye shut and the other half open. But Thayer said he looked closely at the body, even poking it, and saw no outward evidence of foul play. The Khmer Rouge, though, were eager to prove to the world that Pol Pot died a natural death. "I did not kill him," Ta Mok insisted. "He was sitting in his chair, waiting for the car to come. But he felt tired. Pol Pot's wife asked him to take a rest. He lay down in his bed. His wife heard a gasp of air. It was the sounds of dying. When she touched him, he had already passed away." Thayer said in an interview that he was well aware of Pol Pot's health problems, because the guerrilla leader had listed them in their October meeting. Pol Pot told Thayer he suffered from a heart condition and serious respiratory problems. Thayer recalled that at the time Pol Pot could walk only a few feet before "he was literally gasping for breath." Thayer said that in February, during another trip he made to the Khmer Rouge-held jungle of northern Cambodia, he carried with him heart medicine that the Khmer Rouge had requested for Pol Pot. "I brought the medicine in, and I delivered it to the Khmer Rouge leadership to give to Pol Pot," Thayer said. But Thayer needed some forensic evidence to take back to Thailand -- evidence that the body was indeed that of Pol Pot and that could perhaps provide clues to the cause of death. So Thayer decided he needed Pol Pot's false front teeth. "The teeth is what I was going after," Thayer said. "We knew that his two front teeth were false, and there aren't any dentists in Cambodia so there had to be dental records somewhere. If I came out with the two front teeth off the corpse and they matched, there'd be no question that was Pol Pot." "They agreed to give me the teeth," Thayer said. "The wife was a little freaked out -- she didn't like the idea. . . .The wife looked at me like I was nuts." The Khmer Rouge leaders later changed their minds about the teeth after more journalists poured over the border. Ta Mok and other Khmer Rouge leaders said they hope Pol Pot's death will allow the group to rehabilitate its image and shed its murderous reputation. "Pol Pot has nothing to do with our movement," Ta Mok said. "It is Pol Pot who caused trouble to our movement. Without Pol Pot, our movement might not be like it is today."

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April 17, 1998

The most evil man in the world is dead

POL POT, the Cambodian dictator whose name is synonymous with genocide, is dead. The man responsible for the killing, torture and starvation of over one million of his people, died peacefully following a heart attack.

There was confusion at first over whether reports of his death were true. But it now seems clear that he died late on Wednesday in a Cambodian village two miles from the border with Thailand. His body was shown to a group of journalists yesterday. They included the American reporter Nate Thayer, who has interviewed Pol Pot twice recently and is convinced that the dead man is the former dictator.

After causing havoc in his lifetime by plunging Cambodia into one of the most disastrous experiments in social engineering the world has seen, his death at the age of 76 was prosaic. Dressed in baggy grey trousers and an off-white, short-sleeved cotton shirt his body was laid out in a simple hut reeking of formaldehyde. Teenage Khmer Rouge soldiers, who resembled those who carried him to power for four bloody years, starting in 1975, guarded the body. Before he died, they had been his captors. According to reports earlier in the week the rump of the Khmer Rouge had been planning to turn him over for international trial in a last attempt to save their own skins from advancing Cambodian government forces. Pol Pot died deserted by his erstwhile comrades-in-arms in their last stronghold. Having inspired terror in Cambodia, he had become an entirely marginal figure. As if to emphasise the isolation facing the Khmer Rouge, the only sound to be heard while Pol Pot lay at rest was the rumble of fighting between Khmer Rouge and government troops. There is no suggestion of foul play in Pol Pot's death. Since he was arrested by his own troops last year he has been ill. The Cambodian government spokesman, Khieu Kahnarith, said the state wanted to conduct a medical investigation but thought it unlikely that the former dictator had been killed. Non Nou, the Khmer Rouge commander responsible for Pol Pot's security, said: "If they are afraid the body was tampered with, ask his wife. She was there". It is unlikely that there will be much mourning for Pol Pot. Cambodia's King, Norodom Sihanouk, who twice allied himself with the Khmer Rouge, recently called him "one of the most horrible monsters ever created". Known as "Brother Number One"' during the years of his rule, Pol Pot may have been responsible for the deaths of one-fifth of Cambodia's population. Researchers believe as many as 1.7 million people died as a result of executions, torture and mass starvation. Pol Pot received his higher education in France and acquired a reputation there as an amiable, fun-loving student. It was in France that he also became acquainted with Marxism and back in his homeland he built up the revolutionary movement which overthrew Lon Nol's regime in 1975. The movement he helped to create is now largely decimated. It helped create the current government led by Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who is also no stranger to using violence for political ends.